A haunting documentary on objects, memory and the politics of commerce by prize-winning filmmaker Mercedes Álvarez.
The contents of a home are emptied and then trampled on in an outdoor market. Real-estate salesmen peddle their wares in showrooms where giant shiny billboards promise paradise to those who buy into the myth. Brokers sell stocks and shares in a frenzied market. Salesmen are lectured on motivation and stress. In contrast to those fed by dreams of property in exotic locations, or the quick sell in the world of high finance, there is 92-year-old Jesús Castro. Jesús sells the wares others throw out from a garage converted into a makeshift store. From his vantage point he watches the world and ruminates on events past and present with those who pass by. From Mercedes Álvarez, director of the acclaimed The Sky Turns (LFF 2005) comes a study of ways of looking and observing what surrounds us. Delicately weaving together the different threads of the film with the writings of the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos and works by Michelangelo and Bosch, Álvarez crafts an elegant and highly moving documentary on history, mortality, memory and the politics of commerce in the contemporary world.
Maria Delgado
