Dir: Silvina Schnicer/Ulises Porra Guardiola | Drama | Arg | 90′
Although a mother and son reunion is at the heart of this atmospheric debut from Argentinian duo Silvina Schnicer and Ulises Porra Guardiola, it is the rapport and shared histories of the female characters that makes this so engaging and enjoyable.
TIGRE follows sixty-something Rina and her friend Elena back to the ramshackle family estancia where they hope to enjoy an extended get together in the Tigre Delta. The sweltering humidity and local mores of the lush tropical river setting lend a surreal almost sinister undertone to proceedings. But this is not just a summer retreat, Rina needs the help of her estranged son to stand firm against the developers, who are threatening to take over land which has always been in their family and part of their heritage. And it’s this thorny thread that drives the narrative forward, providing an astringent tension in contrast to the relaxed reveries of the female characters.
TIGRE shares similar thematic concerns with fellow Argentinian Milagros Mumenthaler’s The Idea of a Lake and there are also comparisons to be drawn with Jorge Thielen Armand’s recent docu-drama La Soledad in which a family’s last bastion, a dilapidated villa in Caracas, provide a fitting metaphor for Venezuela’s current economic crisis. Armand’s poetic paean to his grandparents home is a mournful one full of exotic birdsong, and here too the ambient sounds of nature provide the necessary calm to comtemplate this issues at play. Clearly, property and home are the salient elements in a woman’s life when menfolk are absent or unreliable, as they appear to be again here in Argentina. Unfortunately, the directors weaken the film’s dramatic heft with a preponderance of disparate elements, that while offering intrigue, detract from the central narrative. Despite all this and the film’s rather tricksy ending, TIGRE is a beguiling and lushly cinematic feature underpinned by its weighty social and cultural themes. MT
SCREENING AT EAST END FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 15 APRIL 2018