Mr. Subiela thought his third film would be a hit. It came right after Hombre's success and it received just about every international film award. He invested all the profits he made with Hombre and lost them. Still, the film is one of his personal fave. The public however, didn't care much for it. He concluded that audiences felt depressed after watching it. It's hard to make money that way. In late 1980s Argentina was a changing country. It had just survived a bloody military dictatorship and a stupid war with England. Deaths and "desaparecidos" weigh on the national consciousness. All the promises of El Peronismo were lost along the way. But instead of looking at the country with the proverbial Argentine cynicism and wicked sense of humor, Subiela takes a poetic look at it and comes up with a delightfully weird production that depicts the existential emptiness of a smart but tragic nation. The film could've been shorter; it could've been funnier. Whatever he was drinking/smoking during the scriptwriting process didn't help his commercial ambitions. But it served his poetic ones. He made it. Bravo! One only needs to check out the work that came afterward to understand that he learned his lesson, namely, be brave, be daring, keep the tone and the attitude but please, don't get me down. LB
Review of Last Images of the Shipwreck
