In recent years, a growing stream of gratifying news about new cinema has emerged from Chile, just as it has from neighbouring Argentina. Play, the debut of young Alicia Scherson, is illustrative of the ambitions and daring of the new generation of Chilean film makers. Its playful narrative style evokes associations with Hal Hartley, and the sensitive ironic tone of Scherson’s sketch of social relations in modern Santiago has already been compared with the films of Lucrecia Martel. The protagonists of this nimble puzzle are Christina and Tristan. She is a poor, cheerful country girl obsessed by the big city who earns her living taking care of a sick Hungarian. Tristan, on the contrary, lives in a luxury apartment but is about to lose everything: his wife, his work, a suitcase full of money and his iPod. Christina enters Tristan’s life when she finds the suitcase. With his music and cigarettes as props, she stalks the unsuspecting Tristan and his family. This provides a fascinating sketch of class differences in a South American metropolis. The city itself, where anonymity reigns, becomes an ambivalent protagonist thanks to Scherson’s eye for detail: a place to disappear from or to lose yourself in. For one it’s a dangerous opponent, for the other a seducer. (GT)
