Based on Osvaldo Soriano’s novel, writer-director Héctor Olivera’s Una sombra ya pronto serás is an uneven, though somewhat affecting “road picture” from Argentina. Its anonymous protagonist is (according to him) inaccurately addressed as “Zárate” by another character, circus-owner and perpetual clown Coluccini, who seems to have wandered in from a Fellini movie. Because Coluccini, who interacts with God, no less, at one point, may know better than “the engineer” what the engineer’s name is, I likewise will refer to him as Zárate.
We first see Zárate as a pair of legs getting off a train that has stalled in the middle of nowhere. It is a ghost train; no other seat is occupied, at least not in the car that Zárate presumably occupied. Zárate, middle-aged, carries a bag. The train is of a piece with other aspects of the region that Zárate has entered: a farm is deserted; restaurants are closed; other trains also aren’t running; the fellow at the gas station declares himself “on strike.” Zárate runs into others, but usually one at a time, solidifying an impression of solitudinousness; the cramped quarters of a small car even rob his one sexual encounter of sociability. The night before, this fleeting partner gave Zárate a tarot card reading at the motel they were both staying at: “You’re tired of dragging yourself around.” So that’s what’s in Zárate’s bag.
Everyone except Zárate is trying to get to somewhere real: Alaska, Bolivia, Brazil, even Cleveland, Ohio. Everyone, lost, accidentally crosses Zárate’s path again. If this be Purgatory, one, Coluccini, is told by God he is in the wrong place again (meaning he is heaven-bound), while another, Lem, chooses hell by killing himself. Zárate, permanently estranged from his ten-year-old daughter, just keeps wandering.
There are some boring patches here, most of them involving gambling, and an intrusive musical score keeps telegraphing which scenes are supposed to be funny. By way of compensation, Miguel Ángel Solá is very appealing as Zárate—although close to the end there is a moment when he is close to devastating.
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A SHADOW YOU SOON WILL BE (Héctor Olivera, 1994)
Based on Osvaldo Soriano’s novel, writer-director Héctor Olivera’s Una sombra ya pronto serás is an uneven, though somewhat affecting “road picture” from Argentina. Its anonymous protagonist is (according to him) inaccurately addressed as “Zárate” by another character, circus-owner and perpetual clown Coluccini, who seems to have wandered in from a Fellini movie. Because Coluccini, who interacts with God, no less, at one point, may know better than “the engineer” what the engineer’s name is, I likewise will refer to him as Zárate.
We first see Zárate as a pair of legs getting off a train that has stalled in the middle of nowhere. It is a ghost train; no other seat is occupied, at least not in the car that Zárate presumably occupied. Zárate, middle-aged, carries a bag. The train is of a piece with other aspects of the region that Zárate has entered: a farm is deserted; restaurants are closed; other trains also aren’t running; the fellow at the gas station declares himself “on strike.” Zárate runs into others, but usually one at a time, solidifying an impression of solitudinousness; the cramped quarters of a small car even rob his one sexual encounter of sociability. The night before, this fleeting partner gave Zárate a tarot card reading at the motel they were both staying at: “You’re tired of dragging yourself around.” So that’s what’s in Zárate’s bag.
Everyone except Zárate is trying to get to somewhere real: Alaska, Bolivia, Brazil, even Cleveland, Ohio. Everyone, lost, accidentally crosses Zárate’s path again. If this be Purgatory, one, Coluccini, is told by God he is in the wrong place again (meaning he is heaven-bound), while another, Lem, chooses hell by killing himself. Zárate, permanently estranged from his ten-year-old daughter, just keeps wandering.
There are some boring patches here, most of them involving gambling, and an intrusive musical score keeps telegraphing which scenes are supposed to be funny. By way of compensation, Miguel Ángel Solá is very appealing as Zárate—although close to the end there is a moment when he is close to devastating.
This entry was posted on July 5, 2008 at 9:54 am and is filed under Informal Capsule Film Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.