El abrazo partido

Daniel Burman is part of a very talented young generation of Argentine film makers. El abrazo partido is his fourth feature. As in his widely praised Esperando al Mesias, it focuses on the quest for a personal identity, against the background of the economic malaise. Once again, the charismatic Daniel Hendler plays the lead. In a lively, documentary-like style, Burman sketches the complexity of his country with lots of humour and self-mockery. The small Argentine shopping mall where this film is set is a reflection of the whole country. There, population groups and generations work and live together. The screaming Italians, the Koreans with their feng-shui store, the boring men selling stationery, the voluptuous Internet lady, financial adviser Mitelman, and the family of the protagonists Ariel. His mother has a lingerie shop, and his brother Joseph trades in everything that can be traded. Ariel has had enough of the shopping mall. Always the same people, the same economic insecurity. He is also angry with his father, who left the family soon after Ariel’s birth, supposedly to fight for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Ariel still doesn’t understand why he did this and especially why he didn’t just come back. In other words: Ariel is an anguished youngster who wants to leave, preferably for Europe. His Polish-born grandmother can offer a way out.(SdH)