Eliseo Subiela

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ELISEO SUBIELA

(Automated translation from Spanish language web site dedicated to Eliseo Subiela [1]http://subiela.tripod.com/)

Great Russian director Tarkovski used to say that in the cinema there are two types of directors, those that they imitate to the world in which they live and those that creates their own world and that denominated “the poets of the cinema”. Between these last ones he included Bresson, Bergman, Buñuel, Kurosawa, etc. He is not dangerous to say that Eliseo Subiela embarked within the poetic directors of the cinema, bursting in with masters and originality into the national cinema. Subiela was born in Buenos Aires in 1944, had a fleeting pass by Philosophy and Letters and the School of cinema of the Silver. The anxiety to film would take it to make its first short “long silence” (1963) to the 19 years. With this short one it obtains the Great Prize to the best cortometraje in III the Festival the International of Vine of the Sea. At that time Leonardo Favio it wanted to make his first film as director and needed assistants, would be Maria Vaner who would relate them; this way his first experience as assistant would be “Chronic of a single boy”. The following experience as assistant were “Esquiú, a light in the footpath” of Ralph Pappier. Soon in 1965 it would film his second short one “On all these stars”, that treated on the expectations of the cinema extras. With this short one it obtains several prizes, among them the given one by the National Institute of Cinematography, first prize to the Best Director of Cortometrajes. Also it would have his experience like advertising director, obtaining about two hundred announcements for nine countries. In 1970 the idea is born to film in Missions and the text that seduced it was “the lost steps” of I move away Carpentier, but the rights of the text had been bought by Tyrone Power (finally it did not film it), of all ways, Carpentier, stimulated it to make a free version. The film was going away to call “the doors of the paradise”, but year 1977 ran and the National Being of Cinematographic Qualification, approves the book with objections, soon to be in the forgetfulness, somehow was subjects that bothered. To Subiela it took two years to him to elaborate a new script, conserved some schemes of the previous one and the title was “the conquest of the paradise”, that would become, in 1980, in the first largometraje. Some of the subjects of this film would be recurrent in the filmografía of Subiela; so it is the case of the search of the father and the relation between the love and the death. Subiela says: “I discover that in all my films the knowledge is repeated man-woman through two borders (of the river or the routes) in the presence of the death. ” (1) This film shaped the bases of the poetic cinema that soon would develop Subiela. The opening of the film was received with praises on the part of the press, but the public did not respond and the commercial failure was evident. Subiela does not occur by won and its time will be taken to be elaborating its masterpiece and one of the best Argentine films of the decade of the '80: “Man watching at the Southeast”. In single a month it arms the script, but to arm the production has been a year to him. Elenco was chosen between actors of the Municipal Theater San Martin, some of almost unknown them. The Metaphysical and psychological problems of the film are expressed poetically and with images of extraordinary beauty, that came to break the predominant style of the national cinema. The treated subjects were of universalist order, as they are it the love, madness and the death, and were left to different readings and interpretations open. But its opening was not easy, first it had to obtain to five international prizes and several months of success in EE.UU and Canada; after the international success it managed to wake up interest to be released in our country, almost after a filmed year of. The answer of the public was immediate. In spite of the obtained triumph, it did not appear a national producer so that Subiela made the following film. Nevertheless proposals arrived to him to work in the outside and special of EE.UU. This situation forces it to publish its famous one solicitd that said: “Sir president, my family does not want to live in Hollywood”… Finally with the money that arrived from the outside, he could begin to roll his following work “You complete images of the shipwreck” (1988); in order to avoid losses, due to the hyperinflation, he is released first in the outside and just in 1990 in our country. This film conserves its aesthetic lírica, as much in the message as in the images, but history is developed in a melancholy and sadness atmosphere. What causes that is not a film that digests quickly. The marked situation on a map is a good metaphor of the collapse of the Argentine society, conserving the Metaphysical and psychological contents. The next project was “the dark side of the heart” (1991/92), announced by its author like “a fable on the life and the death, that fight under the Cross of the South: a metaphor on the feelings and sex, a romance of hurt angels, the history of one cenicienta of night club and a crazy prince, the confirmation of which, still wounded, those who win are always those that is animated to give” (2). It is the most River plate film of Subiela, by the used scenes and poems of Girondo, Gelman and Benedetti. We can say that the text of the film is a great poem and less they are not the images, that shiningly manage to displace the spectator and will have to become jumbled to decipher the metaphors of the same ones. His personage, Oliverio, will have to solve his existenciales problems that oscillate between the seduction of the love and the death. In 1995 it will be the turn of “you do not die without saying to me to where you go”, in this film, Leopoldo, it invents a machine that collects dreams, one of those dreams is Rachel, to whom will find when she is reincarnated ..... The following year it publishes “Despabílate love”, this film, treats on the generation of ends years 60, his ideals, his utopias, his loves and when they are already adult and the only thing that are is memories; he is inevitable that the film is developed in a melancholic climate. Finally in 1997, he publishes his last work “Small Miracles”, his personage is a small timid introvert and who reads many fairy tales, until she is created a fairy, taking refuge in the magical world that she has created, but with the hope of a miracle that she dreams and is the arrival of the love. Subiela creates a magical world, a fairy tale, being raised the love like only possibility of salvation. We can say that Eliseo Subiela is a director whom it has innovated to the national cinema and it obtains it through the magical world creation, legend, without neglecting its philosophical questions and meticulous taken care of of the psychological profile of its personages to which we added subjects to him that is of the universal order as it is the case of the love, madness, the death and the spiritual thing. All their films are open to diverse interpretations, which forces the spectator to imply itself in the film. Subiela does not close the sense that wants to transmit, does not give too many answers, on the contrary what offers they are interrogative and it skillfully makes through a poetic style and beautiful images, some near ones the surrealismo, but conserving a great sense of the aesthetic one, unusual images in our cinema. With his provoking, Metaphysical cinema, magical and talented, it has obtained the originality and the genius necessary to be located between the best directors arisen in our earth.

Lic. Waldo Garci'a Consulted bibliography: Parana Sendras: “Eliseo Subiela” Edit. Publishing center of Latin America. 2 references 1 and Idem.

His most acclaimed movie is, until today, "The Dark side of the heart" and "Dark Side of Heart II". Here is the review of "Dark Side of Heart II" in the [history of cinema][2] web site:

"Eliseo Subiela's El Lado Oscuro del Corazon/ Dark Side of Heart II (2001) is a surreal meditation on aging, decay, fear of death and the meaning of love. The protagonist is an intellectual who is searching for something to redeem his meaningless life. A web of symbols (gravity, time) supports his allegorical journey. There is a bit of Fellini and a bit of Bergman in Subiela's tortuous, and, of course, a bit of magic realism and of Borges. His hyperbolic language recycles stereotypes that are not particularly original (the conversations with Time and Death). But the narrative flows in a mature and credible manner, and the way reality, dream and thought are blurring is remarkable. 

Middle-aged poet Oliverio hangs out at a bar and discusses women and gravity with barman Paco. He picks up (or dreams of picking up) a lonely woman. They have sex, then he presses a button and dumps the woman into a discharge hidden below the bed. Back to the bar, Oliverio meets another woman and has sex with her too. As he is walking in the street, a public phone starts ringing: he picks it up and has a poetical/philosophical conversation with the woman who called. She's another lover. They meet in a dance hall and she introduces him to Time himself, who keeps count of the past but can't predict the future. When he is alone, Oliverio talks to himself, to a double and even to a triple. Miranda asks him to find a job, but he is depressed by the aging process. His double convinces him to dump Miranda and travel to Spain. Oliverio, always trailed by Time on a motorcycle, looks and finds an old lover, Ana, but Time makes fun of his return to the past. Joaquin, a theatrical agent, invites him to a party. Joaquin is intriguing by the posters of Alejandra, a circus acrobat who (the poster says) is capable of flying, but Joaquin introduces him to twin sisters Daphne and Chloe (one is a magician and the other one is her best trick) and Oliverio has sex with them too. In his dreams, he keeps dumping women under the bed, and even himself. Obsessed with the woman who can fly, Oliverio asks Time to give him a ride to the circus. Oliverio is fascinated by Alejandra's show and goes to see her after the show. A man in black comes out of her trailer: he is Death, madly in love with her, and waiting for her to make a mistake. Oliverio tries to make love to her, but she tells him that first he must pass a test: he has to cross the tightrope that she crosses during her show. As Oliverio begins to walk over the tightrope, she begins to undress. His double and his triple laugh as he tries in vain to perform the acrobatic act. He fails (falls in the safety net) and has to sleep alone. The following day he sits next to the Death during Alejandra's show. Joaquin warns him against falling in love with her because she already tries to commit suicide. Oliverio doesn't listen: he tries again to cross the tightrope, fails again, and has to sleep alone again. This time he also play cards with Time, Death and Ana, and wins. Time whispers in his ear an advice on how to slow down both of them, Time and Death. Oliverio tries again to cross the tightrope, and this time Alejandra meets him halfway. They make love, but in the middle of the night Oliverio finds her dancing with Death. Still, he prevails: she chooses him over Death after walking the tightrop without any safety net. The couple takes off on Time's motorcycle (Time is not an enemy, he is the protector of Oliverio's most valuable treasure, his memories) but still followed by Death and Ana in a car. They dance and Oliviero defiantly touches Alejandra's belly (implying that she's getting pregnant), observed by Death, Ana and his own double and triple. "