Uncategorized

‘The Life of Fish’ is bold and emotional

Santiago Cabrera and Blanca Lewin star as in the Spanish-language film “La Vida Los Peces,” which was screened on campus last week.

The second night of the “Ties That Bind” Latin American Studies film series went underway Thursday night with “La Vida de Los Peces.”
Translated in English, “The Life of Fish,” is a film directed by Matías Bize (“En la cama”). It is about a young man, Andrés (Santiago Cabrera, TV’s “Heroes”), who comes to his hometown in Chile briefly to tie up some loose ends and meet up with some friends before he goes back to Berlin for his job.
Andrés ends up being drawn to Beatriz (Blanca Lewin), a lost love from his past, who has had children since they last saw each other years before.
“La Vida de los Peces” won the Goya Award for best Spanish language foreign film in 2011. It also won the Jury Award at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival for best director that same year.
The film was touching and conveyed many emotions through the actors’ facial expressions. It helped to show what the characters were feeling without just saying it.
This film showed a lot of heart. There was a connection between Andrés and all of the other characters that felt genuine and gave the film an emotional depth that made the audience feel for these characters.
The movie was also filmed in a very interesting way that helped convey emotions and even physical ailments. During one scene, the screen continued to get blurry as Andrés and his friend’s sister drank and became intoxicated.
Many scenes went silent, which helped the scene feel real and intense. The viewer did not have background music to focus on, only the raw emotions between the characters.
Like the other films in this festival, it was presented with 35 mm film in Spanish with English subtitles.
Jerry Mosher, chair of the Film and Electronic Arts department, introduced the night.
Mosher said that the film series director, José Sánchez-H, is on medical leave now, but “We’re very thankful to [him] for putting this on for us.”
Norma Chinchilla, a sociology instructor, also stood before the crowd to promote the Latin American studies minor at Cal State Long Beach.
Alicia del Campo, a Spanish instructor, introduced the movie by giving a brief description of the director, who directed his first feature film, “Sábado, una película en tiempo real,” when he was 23 years old.
 “I like how the filmmaker uses music along with the process of the filmmaking,” Campo said. “It makes it unique”
The third film in the Latin American Studies film series will be “¡Vámonos con pancho villa!” or “Let’s go with Pancho Villa!” It will be screened Thursday at 7 p.m.
This film will be a change of pace for the festival because it came out in 1936. According to Campo, the Film and Electronic Arts department usually likes to show one historical film in its festivals.
 

You may also like

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *