SUDDENLY (Diego Lerman, 2002)

From Argentina and the Netherlands, Diego Lerman’s Tan de repente is a road picture about three young women, one of them a stranger kidnapped from Buenos Aires by the other two, who visit the elderly aunt of one of them in Rosario. The kidnapped character is a store clerk whose work week is one long, monotonous grind; the kidnappers are nicknamed Lenin and Mao, and I forget which one has a sexual relationship with the kidnapped proletarian, although each insists that she is not a lesbian—one of several hints that at some level the “reality” that the film shows emanates from the kidnapped clerk’s wish-fulfilling mind.
     This is a wonderful comedy-drama that perfectly catches some of the actual rhythms of life. It is a film about memories on opposite fronts of experience: those rekindled for the aunt as she approaches her end; those being created for the kidnapped clerk by her freshly expanded range of experiences. The film is suspended between naturalism/reality and dreaminess, with each mode interpenetrating the other. As a bonus, the film is gorgeously shot in black and white. The cinematographers are Diego del Piano and Luciano Zito.
     Lerman’s lovely, engaging film won a host of prizes, including the ones for top film at the Havana and the Milan International Lesbian and Gay Film Festivals.