Whisky

The tall and silent sixty-year-old Jacobo Köller is owner of an ageing sock factory. Day in, day out, he sets off to work early, where his faithful assistant Martha arrives with him at the same time. They greet each other with few words and get on with their everyday activities. This imperturbable regularity comes to an end when Jacobo’s younger brother Herman comes over from Brazil. The two brothers have not had much contact for years, but now Herman feels forced to get involved with placing a gravestone for their mother. Jacobo gets so nervous at the prospect of facing his socially successful brother, that he asks Martha to act as his wife. When Herman invites them for a short holiday, a tragicomic triangular relationship ensues. With their début success 25 Watts Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll put Uruguay on the map as a film country. The sequel Whisky (the local variation on ‘Say cheese!’) has already been compared with the films of Aki Kaurismäki, with which they share the precise framing and montage, the touching, dry humour and a deep psychological insight and compassion with ordinary people. But however honourable the comparison may be, with their award-winning second film, Stoll and Rebella mainly show that a specifically Uruguayan cinema is alive and well. (GT)