Movies that can be seen on January 23 – Special platforms

This week we focus on cinema that can be seen on platforms such as Filmin, Netflix, HBOMax and Movistar+: Yi Yi by Edward Yang, a Taiwanese masterpiece that turns 25 and explores the human condition through family conflicts. They also highlight The follies by Rodrigo García, intertwined episodes about limits between health and illness; Train dreams by Clint Bentley, a serene portrait of a survivor in the American West; the documentary The roar of flames (Only on Earth) by Robin Petré, ethnographic about fires in Galicia; sovereign citizens by Christian Swegal, criticism of Trumpism from the perspective of a teenager; and Dear Tropic by Ana Endara Mislov, intimate drama about motherhood and emigration in Latin America. Are movies that can be seen They condense universal emotions and deserve your attention in streaming.

On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, the most recommended platform recovers this Taiwanese film that, through several family conflicts, composes a very suggestive investigation into the human condition, that is, into our loves, desires, dreams, obligations, etc. Daily and family life reaches the dimensions of Life. There are brilliant ideas, such as the parallelism between the father's delayed love and his daughter's love disagreements, the figure of the grandmother in a coma to whom everyone talks to stimulate her brain, becoming a silent confessor, or the child who wants to photograph insects and makes avant-garde art. With a tempo very typical of oriental cinema, I think it is quite an experience to contemplate the almost three-hour stories that condense a world.

With an undisguised vocation as a playwright, the Colombian living in Mexico and the United States Rodrigo García is brilliant in portraits of women and in films of intertwined episodes, such as “Nueve Días” shot in sequence shots. This director – son of the remembered Gabo García Márquez and brother-in-law of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum – filmed a few episodes of the North American series “Enterapia” and now offers stories about conflicts under the open heading of “The Follies.” I did not find it as interesting as his other works, although I found the reflection on the debatable limits between illness and health valuable, and particularly episode 4 where a psychiatrist is considered socially crazy by her family.

The serene narration mood of Denis Johnson's novel of the same name is maintained in this film that stands out for the emotion transmitted by its protagonist, a man wounded by life and a survivor in a 20th century American West of dizzying changes. Its photography and lyrical music are striking, very delicate. But it is not an easy work, but requires a spectator willing to participate in the story and witness the loneliness of its protagonist.

I find this documentary by a Danish director filmed in Galicia most affected by fires and drought to be a more than remarkable work. He renounces any explanatory voice and expert interviews to film ordinary people (farmers, firefighters, ranchers, children) and offer truly fascinating images of the landscape, the fire or the “rapa das bestas.” It contextualizes the fires and their consequences, but goes further and shows lifestyles, which gives the film an ethnographic flavor. Stimulating.

The perspective is that of a teenager who has grown up without a mother and without schooling, dominated by an anti-system father about to be evicted. That father leads a group that fights against the banks and against any institution, law or social norm that conditions his most holy will, until a point of serious confrontation arrives. The film criticizes the psychology of the types who feed Trumpism and other fundamentalisms, but it also implies, through the figure of the sheriff, that this ultra ideology grows in authoritarian society. In short, a somewhat indefinite speech in an uneven but suggestive story.

A Colombian immigrant without papers in Panama gets a job caring for a wealthy, older woman, with some mental deterioration, to whom her children pay little attention. Along the lines of this relationship that grows beyond work, we investigate the relationships we have with our children and even whether it is really worth it to have been parents. With few characters and the single space of the house, it is a very careful and stylish intimate drama that works well thanks to the script, the brief dialogues and the interpretation of the two actresses. It's worth it. (The best cinema that comes to us from Latin America is made by women and, in addition to an estimable level of expressiveness, it masterfully handles the emotional dimension, which gives it universal value).

Cinema on platforms to see on January 23