Las Acacias
2011 Directed by Pablo Giorgelli
Synopsis
Rubén is a lonely truck driver who has been covering for years the motorway from Asunción del Paraguay to Buenos Aires, carrying wood. However, today's journey will be different. This morning, in a motorway stop near Asunción, Jacinta shows up an hour later to begin a journey by track which is going to take her to Buenos Aires. Wath's more, Rubén finds out at that very moment that little Anahí, who's 8 months old, will travel with them- It is not the best beginning. As kilometres go by, th relationship between Rubén and Jacinta will grow. they will slowly meet and sip into each other's soul. None of them talks much about their lives. None asks much either. It's a few word journey but it is not a silent one
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This gentle and slow paced debut feature from Pablo Giorgelli focuses on a truck driver who reluctantly gives a lift to a woman and her young baby. The plot really is as simple as that with few plot deviations and surprises along the way. Yet this is not a story driven tale but one powered by its characters. The film is nearly wordless (and what dialogue there is is often unimportant) with emotions and motives conveyed in the character’s actions. With the film confined largely to the truck (even when characters leave the cabin the camera often remains firmly stuck inside) there is a sense of great intimacy between the pair despite only sharing a brief moment together.
It is…
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Man and truck meet mom
and child. It could use a
Stephen King rewrite. -
A woman and her baby hitch a ride with a lonely truck driver through a mutual acquaintance and head out from Paraguay to Argentina, along the way forging an unexpected and often unspoken connection. A film filled with silences that says so much while hardly saying anything. A strangely touching and unique road trip movie that captures the rhythms of the road and awkward, tentative friendship. A disarming gem.
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3 out of 4. (B)
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What not to do when you take a stranger on a long journey or if you are being taken on a long journey by a stranger - be an antisocial, ignorant bastard.
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A truck driver on his way to Buenos Aires reluctantly has to take along a woman and her young child. The film, bearing very little dialogue, shows us how their relationship develops during the long trip.
This one has no twists or unforeseen events lurking in the shadows, it plots out nicely and comfortable. It really doesn't take a genius to see where it all leads in the end, it's just a warm story full of heart.
Best out of three.
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Amazing little film. A nice slice of life of a truck driver in Paraguay and the woman he gives a ride to. Quiet and touching.
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If there was ever a film to torture someone, this would be it. It epitomizes the expression "It's like watching paint dry".
Maybe there is a point to this film that I just couldn't see but if there is, then it sure is very difficult to find.
The film is about a truck driver who takes a mother and her baby through a controlled border. Sounds like a simple yet interesting concept, but there is no tension and no suspense. I kept shouting in hope that something was going to happen any moment...
Nothing ever did.
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This incredibly subtle and simple film worried me in the first half hour. Very little happens - you literally just watch a man drive a lorry with a woman and baby passenger pretty much in silence other than a border inspection and the odd word here and there. However, the film gradually gets under your skin as the characters open up and although it doesn't 'say' much, it ends up being a very sweet and beautiful little film. Just don't expect much to actually 'happen'.
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A truck driver journeys from Paraguay to Argentina with a woman and her baby, along the way forming a relationship. It sounds dull, but it's surprisingly engrossing. After a hard day at work, this was exactly what I needed; the slow, elegiac style of Pablo Giorgelli's debut film provided me with a peaceful sense of serenity. Nothing much happens in the film, it's 10 minutes in before a word of dialogue is spoken but it's completely absorbing nonetheless. Won't be to everyone's tastes (nothing explodes) but for those that embark upon the journey you will be richly rewarded. It also features the cutest baby I think I've ever seen.
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It takes a supremely talented filmmaker to deliver something where very little happens and very little is said, and yet is wholly engaging and entertaining. Las Acacias is one of the best examples I've seen.
Sit back, relax and let it work its magic.
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A quiet, subtle and surprisingly affecting South American drama, detailing a few days in the life of Ruben, a lorry driver who transports timber from Paraguay across the border into Argentina. Asked by his boss to drive a single woman and her baby daughter to her extended family in Buenos Aires he struggles to shake off his initial resentment and the imposition these strangers make on his established solitude, but they gradually learn to co-exist and eventually connect with each other, mostly without dialogue, as the journey progresses. It's hard not to be lulled as the characters are by the sound of the road beneath the wheels and calmness of the forward motion, and similarly hard not to be won…
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Las aburridas
(but really, if you have a crying baby in your movie, you're not doing something right; if you put this many goo goo ga ga baby faces in your movie, you're some kind of moron)
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Dullness is a long car journey with two boring people. No Drama, no interest, no reason to watch. More on the site.
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[B]
I was ready to dismiss this as boilerplate respectable festival fare while wavering in the take-it-or-leave-it zone for its first half (D'Angelo's W/O is forgiveable), but this snuck up on me as it continually upended my expectations in small but cumulatively affecting ways, with the last five minutes single-handedly bumping my grade up a notch. I do wish however that it didn't linger in close-up on the impossibly adorable infant to such a transparently manipulative extent, which is its only really significant flaw.