15/05/2010

Buenos Aires, 1982: the end of the dictatorial regime. A high school as a metaphoric microcosm for order and emerging subversion. A historic film in which History is left off-screen, but is nevertheless felt in each scene. This is the canvas of The Invisible Eye [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the quite accomplished third feature by Argentinean filmmaker Diego Lerman, which screened yesterday at Cannes in the 42nd Directors’ Fortnight.

Lerman, born in 1976 (the date of Argentinean dictatorship began), adapted Martin Kohan’s book Ciencias Morales and cast Julieta Zylbera as Maria Teresa, a young school supervisor dealing with the advances of her boss, Señor Biasuto (Osmar Nuñez), and with her own repressed sexual instincts. What could easily be seen as a personal drama gains political tones as both characters stand as clear symbols of the social forces that are beginning to raise opposition in the streets, beyond the protective walls of the very elitist Colegio Nacional (where most of the plot is set).

Señor Biasuto embodies the superior guardian of order, claiming that “subversion is a cancer which spreads to other organs and needs to be cut off”. Maria Teresa is an order-keeper apprentice; the project of an “invisible eye”, attentive to everything and always ready to eliminate any potential transgression. The film depicts the process leading to the moment when Maria Teresa’s apparently hard eye/gaze will no longer be able to control her growing inner restlessness.

Zylbera’s remarkable performance is at the heart of the film. Present in almost every scene, the 20-year old actress composes a character that may evoke Isabelle Huppert’s legendary performance in Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Her conservative way of dressing, harsh manners, dysfunctional family and incapacity to deal with her own feelings towards one of the teenage students indeed make the two characters similar.

However if there was no such thing as redemption for the piano teacher, the destiny of the young supervisor will be a slightly different one. Lerman doesn’t film a typical happy ending. For him, liberation comes instead through a radical personal transgression whose future consequences we are left to imagine, but not see.

The liberation of the character – both in terms of affection and of personal revenge – unfolds at the same time as Argentina finally begins to oppose the dictatorship in the streets. Social transformation is not filmed on the large scale (we only get to see some archive images at the very end) but we hear its resonance beyond the school walls and we witness the characters’ growing radicalism and boldness. In that moment when subversion imposes order and personal crimes become political crimes.

An example of the good state of Argentinean cinema, The Invisible Eye also illustrates a successful collaboration two continents. Produced by Buenos Aires-based Campo Cine, the film was co-produced by France’s Agat Film, and Spain’s Imval Producciones and Mediagrama. Paris-based Pyramide is handling international sales.