We start the school year with five films as varied as interesting: Pilgrimage by Carla Simón, a biographical inquiry in the Vigo estuary; The talent by Polo Menárguez, which Schnitzler adapts in a hotel full of ethical dilemmas; April of Dea Kulumegashvili, Georgian chronicle on body and maternity; What I learned from my penguin by Peter Cattaneo, a comedy in Argentina with Steve Coogan and Jonathan Pryce; and Faruk From Asli Özge, documentary portrait about age and family in Istanbul.
Pilgrimage (Carla Simón, 2025)
The third length of the talented Catalan director abounds in her biography and in her condition as adopted daughter. In this installment he seeks information about his biological parents – fashionable of AIDS in the 90s – in the surroundings of the Ría de Vigo. With skill a reconstruction of the trip she could do with the dreams or desire to know a truth beyond family censorship is intermingled. I think the film is missing synthesis but it is always suggestive and exciting. (I attach an interview with his passage through Cannes).
The talent (Menorguez Polo, 2025)
Based on an already centenary novel by Arthur Schnitzler, it has the participation of my admired León de Aranoa in the script and production. The minimum history, which runs practically in one day, during a party of pija people in a “charming” hotel, is focused on a young Chelista, aspiring to enter the Vienna Conservatory, which is seen in the dilemma of succumbing to an indecent proposal to achieve the money that your family needs. The ethical background and the criticism of the upper class are fine, but the film falls a bit short in everything else and the musical test that wants to function as dramatic tension is not properly articulated with the rest.
April (Dea Kulumbegashvili, 2024)
The director of this Georgian production owns a speech and a contemplative style that is put at the service of a reflection on the body, singularly on sex and motherhood. The story focuses on a gynecologist whom they accuse of little orthodox in their private life and in medical practice. Somewhat rewarded, with some uncomfortable images, it is not easy to tune in to this piece, although we recognize its strength and originality.
What I learned from my penguin (Peter Cattaneo, 2024)
Probably Tom Michell's book about his own history as an English teacher at an elite school in Argentina in the first years of the military dictatorship is very interesting, in addition to fun. But the director of the celebrated “Full Monty” only gets halfway that we tune into the delirious story of this teacher who adopts a penguin as exotic pet with some metaphorical value at some times of the story. Unequal, to see as a curious piece, with the excellent Steve Coogan and Jonathan Pryce leading the cast.
Faruk (Asli Özge, 2024)
This curious documentary film is starring a nonagenarian who lives in a block immediately demolition in the Istanbul neighborhood where he has lived his whole life. The trauma of changing home and waiting for reconstruction is exacerbated with contempt for the elderly or the suspicion that their mental faculties are diminished. To this is added the story of his filmmaker who rolls a documentary about him. At times it is family cinema, with the nostalgia of the past years and the memory of the deceased wife; In others it is the denunciation of age and the manipulation of the elderly. I liked it.
September 5 billboard
Source: https://cineenserio.com/pelis-que-se-dejan-ver-el-5-de-septiembre-de-2025/
