What to Watch Online This Week
There’s still time to catch Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra‘s groundbreaking docu-thriller The Infiltrators in virtual cinemas across the country. Telling the stories of unjust deportation from within for-profit detention centers themselves, The Infiltrators follows a pair of radical DREAMers committed to exposing the truth of a broken system. The film is available to stream at a theater near you.
And released to universal critical acclaim, Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña‘s stop-motion tour de force The Wolf House is now available for online streaming. A New York Times Critic’s Pick, the film tells the grim story of Maria, a girl who takes refuge after escaping from a Nazi commune in Pinochet’s Chile. Lauded as “astounding” (The New York Times) and “the darkest animated movie ever made,” (Indie Wire) do not miss the film with the 100% Rotten Tomatoes fresh rating!
Films Available to Stream Now:
Virtual Theatrical Release:
THE WOLF HOUSE
(La casa lobo, Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, Chile, 2018, 73 min. In Spanish and German with English subtitles)
Maria, a young woman finds refuge in a house in the south of Chile after escaping from a sect of German religious fanatics. She is welcomed into the home by two pigs, the only inhabitants of the place. Like in a dream, the universe of the house reacts to Maria’s feelings. The animals transform slowly into humans and the house becomes a nightmarish world. Inspired on the actual case of Colonia Dignidad, The Wolf House masquerades as an animated fairy tale produced by the leader of the sect in order to indoctrinate its followers.
The Cinema Tropical Collection:
YOUR BONES AND YOUR EYES
(Seus Ossos e Seus Olhos, Caetano Gotardo, Brazil, 2019, 118 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
In Caetano Gotardo’s follow-up to The Moving Creatures, João, a middle-class filmmaker living and working in São Paulo, has extensive conversations with friends and strangers, including best friend Irene, who cannot let go of memories of her ex, or a young man he tries to pick up on the metro. Piece by piece, João’s encounters, discussions, and monologues increasingly inspire him, and he begins to reconsider his attitude toward the world around him.
The Cinema Tropical Collection:
YOUR BONES AND YOUR EYES
(Seus Ossos e Seus Olhos, Caetano Gotardo, Brazil, 2019, 118 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
In Caetano Gotardo’s follow-up to The Moving Creatures, João, a middle-class filmmaker living and working in São Paulo, has extensive conversations with friends and strangers, including best friend Irene, who cannot let go of memories of her ex, or a young man he tries to pick up on the metro. Piece by piece, João’s encounters, discussions, and monologues increasingly inspire him, and he begins to reconsider his attitude toward the world around him.
Daily Recommendation:
THREE SAD TIGERS
(Tres tristes tigres, Chile, 1968, 100 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
“Ruiz’s lively debut was based on a play by Alejandro Sieveking, following the various maneuverings and hustles of a group of small-timers striving to carve out a living in the seedy underworld of pre-Allende Santiago. Though this effort—shot in black-and-white, unmistakably under the signs of the French New Wave and Cassavetes—finds Ruiz operating in a more realist mode than in the more widely seen, delirious works to come, his signature playfulness, taste for atmosphere, and knack for unveiling the majesty of the grotesque are already in evidence. Notably, Three Sad Tigers was the first of the three films that Ruiz made in Chile before the 1973 military coup necessitated his exile to France.” —Film at Lincoln Center
Watch now
Daily Recommendation:
THE TERRITORIES
(Los territorios, Iván Granovsky, Argentina/Brazil, 2017, 93 min. In Spanish, English, Arabic, and Basque with English subtitles)
After the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Ivan, a young film producer and self-proclaimed “frivolous” son of a prominent argentine journalist, sets off on a journey to sites of contemporary geopolitical conflict. It is no easy undertaking. Determining where the front line ends and this wannabe war correspondent’s ego trip begins proves even more difficult. The Territories is a coming-of-age fiction nestled inside a geopolitical documentary.
Daily Recommendation:
LA FLOR DE LA VIDA
(Adriana Loeff and Claudia Abend, Uruguay, 2017, 84 min. In Spanish and Italian with English subtitles)
After five decades of marriage, Aldo and Gabriella are facing a crisis. What happened to the couple that fell in love in their twenties? What is keeping them together now that they are blowing out their eightieth candles? Is it time to say good-bye? La Flor de la Vida is a fairy tale facing reality – a universal story about love, relationships and the challenges of aging.
Virtual Theatrical Release:
THE INFILTRATORS
(Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra, USA, 2019, 95 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)
The Infiltrators is a docu-thriller that tells the true story of young immigrants who are detained by Border Patrol and thrown into a shadowy for-profit detention center—on purpose. Marco and Viri are members of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, a group of radical DREAMers who are on a mission to stop unjust deportations. And the best place to stop deportations, they believe, is in detention. However, when Marco and Viri attempt a daring reverse ‘prison break,’ things don’t go according to plan.
The Cinema Tropical Collection:
IS THE CITY ONLY ONE?
(A cidade é uma só?, Adirley Queirós, Brazil, 2011, 79 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles. New York Premiere)
The fascinating debut feature from Adirley Queirós (director of White Out, Black In and Once There Was Brasília) is a fiction/documentary hybrid focusing on a satellite city of Brasilia called Ceilândia. Is the City Only One? reflects on the spatial and social exclusions that have defined the relationship between the federal district, its surroundings, and the people who built the city from nothing.
Daily Recommendation:
PEDRO PÁRAMO
(Carlos Velo, Mexico, 1967, 110 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
“On his mother’s deathbed, Carlos Fernández promises her to return to the town of Comala, to reunite with his father, John Gavin’s Pedro—but is it a town of ghosts? Co-adapted from Juan Rulfo’s now-classic novel, a precursor of Magic Realism, by literary titan Carlos Fuentes, who personally asked Gavin—erstwhile wooden star of Universal weepies (plus Psycho), but son of a Mexican mother and later our ambassador there—to star. He did, “so I could make something I was proud of.” — Film Forum
Daily Recommendation:
ALL NUDITY SHALL BE PUNISHED
(Todo Nudez Será Castigada, Arnaldo Jabor, Brazil, 1973, 102 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
“A satiric burlesque at the expense of the bourgeoisie (who else?), All Nudity tells of a wealthy widower and his son who have embraced celibacy, each for his own reasons, as it turns out. The man’s scoundrel brother, seeing a challenge here, devilishly introduces him to a blonde chanteuse who works a path to his palatial home. There she reigns in shameless Harlowesque displacement – only to meet and fall hard for the chaste young son. Devastating subversive comedy hits its target-upper-class sexual hypocrisy – and keeps on going.” —Pacific Film Archive
Daily Recommendation:
PARAGUAYAN HAMOCK
(Hamaca Paraguaya, Paz Encina, Paraguay/Argentina/France/Netherlands/Spain 2006, 78 min. In Guarani)
“Encina’s award-winning feature is a reflection on time, history, and still and moving images. The works of Juan Rulfo and Samuel Beckett make their way into the captivating soundtrack, as the backdrop for a dialogue between Cándida and Ramón about all that is absent—the rain, a barking dog, and the son who went to war. While they sit in a hammock in a remote rural area of Paraguay during the Chaco War in the 1930s, life develops in static images and recursive themes that illustrate Encina’s view of Paraguay as “an island surrounded by land.” —The Museum of Modern Art
Daily Recommendation:
THE FACE
(El rostro, Gustavo Fontán, Argentina, 2012, 64 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
The Face is a lyrical and personal film shot in stunning black and white, where past and present, fiction and nonfiction mix together. A man who sails alone approaches an island on the Paraná River. Once he lands, he’s no longer alone. He shares a meal with another man—his father. There will also be a woman. And some kids. And nature—in the form of birds, plants, and the river, which is always present through its quietness and constant flowing.