Our reviewers select and review the best independent and foreign films on amazon.com, cd universe, and netflix

Life According to Muriel (Argentina 1997, 98 min, dir: Eduardo Milewicz, cast: Soledad Villamil, Florencia Camiletti, Ines Estevez, Jorge Perugorria).

When an actress bursts out in full stardom we often wonder where she has been all of our movies lives. How could someone so appealing and sexy be hidden so long?

The answer with Soledad Villamil, the amazing presence in the Academy Award winner, The Secret of Their Eyes, can be found in this little know Argentinean film about a mother and daughter’s journey to Patagonia.

Escaping from an unhappy relationship, Laura (Soledad) flees Buenos Aires with only the possessions she can stuff in her car, including her daughter, Muriel (Florencia Camiletti). When they’ve driven far enough to take a breath, Laura pauses at a roadside viewpoint high above a beautiful Patagonian lake. While they take a picture of themselves in their new freedom, the car rolls forward and plunges into the lake.

Is it comedy or tragedy? A little of both as they trudge to a nearby inn run by Mirta (Ines Estevez), another refugee from a bad relationship. The inn becomes their fortress as the three forge a friendship that cannot be penetrated by men (nor, for that matter, can they be penetrated by men). Until Ernesto (Jorge Perugorria), Muriel’s father, shows up and camps in his car until he captures Muriel’s heart. Laura eventually succumbs, and maybe, just maybe, the little family can make it work this time.

The mixture of anger, hurt and self-preservation that flips in an instant to sensuous need is all here in Soledad Villamil’s performance. It is a blueprint for the qualities that have made her so special. She is so easy to look at you shouldn’t ignore the performance of the daughter. It is, after all, life according to her (Muriel). This film has a core of heart and soul that spins in all directions, enveloping the characters and the landscape in a glow that just feels good.

Conversations with Mother (Argentina 2004, 94 min, dir: Santiago Carlos Oves, cast: China Zorilla, Eduardo Blanco, Ulises Dumont)

If you watch enough Argentinean movies you realize they use a small group of players. That’s not surprising. But they are all so good! If there was a Walk of Fame in Buenos Aires, China Zorilla’s star would be outside the top tango club. She started as a dancer, became a comedienne, and then a very accomplished actress.

Elsa & Fred is reviewed on MovieWithMe.com. In Conversaciones con Mama (look it up on Netflix under this Spanish title or you won’t find it), she plays a widowed 82-year-old woman whose 50-year-old son loses his job and wants to move himself and his wife into her apartment.

Not a lot to ask of mama. But in his conversation with her he finds out she is not alone. She has a 69-year-old lover whom she caught eating the food she leaves outside her door for stray cats. One thing led to another and she invited him in.

What is wonderful about China is that she exudes energy at any age. In Elsa & Fred she bounds out of a fancy restaurant leaving the check. In Conversaciones she has no qualms about taking in a homeless lover. He may be coming for the food but, she hints with her smile, the real feast is in the bedroom.

There are people in the world who worry their way through life, and people who live moment to moment. The latter have a gift to give us all…even if it is only acting.

Nine Queens (Argentina, 2000, 114 min, dir: Fabian Bielinsky, cast: Ricardo Darin, Gaston Pauls, Leticia Bredice)

Criminal (USA 2004, 87 min, dir: Gregory Jacobs, cast: John C. Reilly, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Diego Luna)

How can one movie be a hit and the remake a dud? What goes wrong is always a mystery but it follows the old rule: you never know how it will turn out.Nine Queens is an Argentinean classic.

A clever grifter recruits an understudy to help him with the big one: he’s got his hands on forgeries of a priceless stamp collection (the nine queens are the faces on the stamps). He’s going to sell them to a visiting billionaire for big bucks. Most of the action takes place in the hotel where the billionaire is staying, and where the con man’s sister is, conveniently, the concierge. The deal gets rough when the billionaire throws in an added condition: he wants to sleep with the grifter’s sister. She hates her brother, and grinds him into the ground on the deal for her ass.

Great idea, very original. The writer/director was an assistant director most of his short career (he died at 47 of a heart attack while casting a commercial in Brazil). Nine Queens is his lasting memorial. You can’t find much wrong with it, and the casting of versatile Argentine actor Ricardo Darin (see clip: Son of the Bride on MovieWithMe.com) and fetching Leticia Bredice (click for her Playboy photos) is inspired.

So why did it bomb in the American remake? What are the clues? Remember the phrases “writer/director,” “versatile,” and “playboy.”

The American director, Gregory Jacobs, is also an accomplished first assistant director. Criminal is his one of his few (shared) writing credits, and his solo directing gig. I suspect he got this break because of pals on a lot of big Hollywood pictures he’d worked with as First A.D. Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney are the producers of Criminal. Their clout probably landed John C. Reilly and Maggie Gyllenhaal. THAT was the big mistake.

Movies are conceits. If you don’t believe what’s up on the screen is real you’ll take your popcorn and go home. Maggie Gyllenhaal is very talented, but upper class. I’ll NEVER believe she’s going to fuck a guy for her brother’s con game. Leticia Bredice will sell her body to anybody for the right price, including Playboy.

There’s an old saying in movies, “you can’t play working class, you either are or are not.” Maggie is a gifted actress, but she’s no Stella Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire). I’d cast her as Blanche Dubois.

John C. Reilly is no Ricardo Darin either. He’s also a wonderful character actor who specializes in sleazy bumblers. (see clip: The Good Girl on MovieWithMe.com). If he’s playing a bumbler and you know he will lose, so what’s the surprise?

Look at clips of the same scene from both movies. Leticia/Maggie are walking up to the billionaire’s hotel room door resolved to carry out their end of the bargain. See whom you believe.

Elsa & Fred (Argentina/Spain 2005, 108 min, dir: Marcos Carnevale, cast: Manuel Alexandre, China Zorrilla)

Manuel Alexandre has played roles in more films and TV shows than most small countries ever produce. He’s a serious movie actor. China Zorilla is a stage actor in comedies. Can a love story star a comedienne? Put them together and you have a pretty amazing pair, especially since China didn’t do her first film until age fifty.

78 year-old Fred, a widower, moves in across the hall from Elsa. She tells him about her life but it isn’t true. This woman wraps beautiful lies the way most people wrap Christmas presents. But she’s charming. You could put Elsa in a stalled elevator and she’d make friends with everyone in the car. What she doesn’t have is much time.

She’s suffering from-does it make a difference? It’s her secret. It’s going to kill her soon, so her fling with Fred is the last round. She leads him through adventures only a daring twenty-year old would try. My favorite is ordering a meal at the most expensive restaurant in town and then bolting the check. Who would suspect a grandma and grandpa doing their arthritic walk for the door were actually running for it?

Elsa has one last wish to top them all. She wants to go to Rome and jump in the Trevi fountain, just like Anita Ekberg did in La Dolce Vita (she was likened to Ekberg when she was young). The life force of Elsa’s character makes this movie.  When Fred finally meets her ex-husband who she claimed was dead, he asks if he would do it again, given all he went through with her. The husband doesn’t hesitate. He says it was a wonderful ride, and she is an original. So is Elsa & Fred.