Cuadernos means Notebooks or Diaries if I get it right – written by Argentinian writer Ricardo Piglia. Regret to say that I had never heard about him before, even if his long bibliography includes works translated into English, French and German. I will search for books of him in these languages after having seen Andrés di Tella’s fascinating essayistic documentary on and with him. di Tella I know as a true auteur, that’s why I asked him a link to this film. Three years ago I praised his ”Hachazos” on this site.
How to describe the unique style of di Tella? What is it that attracts me so much and draws me totally into the film? The tone first of all, maybe, with its calmness that fits to Piglia (born 1941), his charisma, his voice when he reads from the diaries, but indeed also di Tella’s constant reflection on how to ”film” diaries and his gentle (yes, gentle and not
bombastic) surprising me with archive material, some of it ”found footage” from a collector, some from another writer Amorim, who filmed his colleagues (Borges, Garcia Lorca) to build his own autobiography, and some from (amazing!) the fall of Peron in 1955 and the death of Che Guevara and the return of Peron to Argentina. But on top of that, the theme, daily events written down in this case, some – as says Piglia – ”exist in the diary but not in the memory”, and some in small film clips but not in the memory… And for me also this love to Argentina and Buenos Aires, the city where my father was born in 1921.
The historical frame is clear and linked to the story of Piglia, whose father was a Peronist, was put in jail and moved with family from the suburbs of Buenos Aires to Mar del Plata. ”1955 was a year of Sorrow, 1956 was Prison, 1957 even worse”, words from Piglia, who started to write his diaries when 16 years old in 1957 and have kept on since then. di Tella films him at the moment where he packs down his books to return to Buenos Aires from Princeton University, where he has been teaching (see link below). Piglia reads from the diaries, laughs when he finds – in one of the first notebooks – a list of boxers next to a fictious text, reflects on how much easier it is to convey personal experiences in life when you go from the first person to the third person narrative. The camera rests often on the writer’s face (PHOTO) and his hands later on in the film, when Piglia turns ill and asks the director not to focus the camera on his hands. Very impressive and touching is the story Piglia tells – my life would have been much different if I had stayed in the Buenos Aires suburb like my cousin, whose sad story he gives us listeners and viewers. At some point he does not want to read, di Tella does it for him, their collaboration on this film is obvious, they are both obsessed with memories as they come out in literature and cinema.
What else to be applauded? Yes, the masterly precise placement of music, the dark sequence with the writer in rainy weather that makes me think of ”The Third Man” and Orson Welles, there are other sequences like that, ”film noir”, and then suddenly archive images from a terrorist attack with a beautiful text by the writer and his reflections on how historic moments can influence one’s life. Not to forget the humour!
Looking forward to see this film at European festivals, please!
Argentina, 2016, 81 mins.
http://www.princeton.edu/spo/people/display_person.xml?netid=rpiglia
