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Crane World

2000, Movie, NR, 90 mins

Crane World: Review

CRANE WORLD | MUNDO GRUA
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Not much happens in this gentle-hearted, black-and-white film from Argentina, but it's what doesn't happen that makes it such an unusually satisfying experience. Rulo (Luis Margani), an unemployed, 49-year-old divorcee, doesn't have much going for him. His glory days as the bassist in a rock band are long gone, and his life is confined to the small, messy apartment he occasionally shares with his lazy 19-year-old son Claudio (Federico Esquerro), an aspiring guitarist who seems poised to follow in his father's inauspicious footsteps. Rulo starts to pull his life together when his friend Torres (Daniel Valenzuela) gets him a job on a construction site. Rulo begins training to become a crane operator, but before he can actually climb into the cab, he must pass a physical exam — a problem in light of his 30-cigarette-a-day habit and enormous potbelly. In the meantime, Rulo courts a middle-aged kiosk owner (Adriana Aizemberg) who remembers him from better days, and looks forward to the day when he can mount one of the towering cranes. Written and directed with surprising subtlety by director Pablo Trapero, the film is neatly divided into two parts: The first, set in Buenos Aires, is light, airy and optimistic — the gleaming new buildings and giant cranes swinging through the air at 300 feet reflect Rulo's newfound industriousness. The second half is darker and more desperate, as Rulo winds up looking for work on the southernmost tip of South America, far from home but not far from where he started at the beginning of the film. Coby Migliora's sharp cinematography has all the compositional grace of still photography, and Margani and Aizemberg are both wonderful, naturalistic actors who bring a special pathos to their roles as people drifting past middle age still waiting for their lives to happen. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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