Historias extraordinarias

  • 245'
  • Argentina
  • 2008
The secret tip of the last film year is Mariano Llinás’ Extraordinary Stories. It's impossible to do justice to this film in 200 words. That's not only because the film cannot be compared with anything - and certainly not with what is known as the New Argentine Cinema. As the title indicates, this 245-minute epic, situated on the pampas outside Buenos Aires, is about extraordinary stories. No tranquillity, but the voice-over that pushes the story on. No minimalism, but flamboyant pleasure in film making.
Ideas, anecdotes, characters, references and imagination tumble over each other, but everything is under control, even the satirical lapse. The example for Llinás and the rest is not Bresson, Cassavetes or Antonioni, but rather Louis Feuillade, Borges, or Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy.
A brief synopsis of the three interwoven stories: X. (played by Llinás himself) is the only chance witness of murder and goes into hiding for fear that the murderers have seen him. Z. takes a job in a small rural town and from boredom starts digging into the increasingly mysterious past of his predecessor. He gets a strange task; he has to sail down the Salado River in a small boat, looking for the monolithic remains of an old, abandoned water project. (GT)

  • 245'
  • Argentina
  • 2008
Director
Mariano Llinás
Country of production
Argentina
Year
2008
Festival Edition
IFFR 2009
Length
245'
Medium
Betacam Digi PAL
International title
Extraordinary Stories
Language
Spanish
Producer
Laura Citarella
Production Companies
El Pampero Cine, Turner
Sales
Turner
Screenplay
Mariano Llinás
Cinematography
Agustín Mendilaharzu
Editor
Alejo Moguillasnky
Production Design
Laura Caligiuri
Sound Design
Rodrigo S. Mariño
Music
Gabriel Chwojnik
Cast
Mariano Llinás
Director
Mariano Llinás
Country of production
Argentina
Year
2008
Festival Edition
IFFR 2009
Length
245'
Medium
Betacam Digi PAL
International title
Extraordinary Stories
Language
Spanish
Producer
Laura Citarella
Production Companies
El Pampero Cine, Turner
Sales
Turner
Screenplay
Mariano Llinás
Cinematography
Agustín Mendilaharzu
Editor
Alejo Moguillasnky
Production Design
Laura Caligiuri
Sound Design
Rodrigo S. Mariño
Music
Gabriel Chwojnik
Cast
Mariano Llinás