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Valentin (2003)
Director:
Alejandro Agresti
Genre:
Drama, Foreign
Studio:
Miramax
Check out the official website.
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The opener for this year's Chicago Latino Film Festival was "Valentin," a simple, well-told story about a little boy's struggle to keep some sort of family structure intact after his parents abandon him, leaving him with only a collection of friends and an ailing grandmother.
Argentinian Alejandro Agresti wrote and directed this largely autobiographical film, and the clear reason the film succeeds is due to the performance of a very young Rodrigo Noya. At eight years of age, Noya sort of defines the word "precocious."
In fact, I'll make you a bet. Click through this link in mid-May, when the film receives mainstream theatrical release from Miramax, and I bet my bottom dollar (and that ain't much, my friend) you'll find at least ten reviews that use that term with reckless abandon.
Valentin, it seems, is a little boy with an unbelieveable grasp of his surroundings. He understands the reality of his father's romantic indecisiveness, and that he often uses the child as a tool of seduction, but he plays along on the off chance that he'll gain something closely resembling a nuclear family.
The boy possesses a sort of ageless wisdom when dealing with his elders, as when he gives advice to a neighbor and music instructor fondness for drink and an obvious broken heart.
In a largely bi-lingual crowd, the strength of the movie was clear. Well-earned laughter came in waves, as non-Spanish speakers reacted to the subtitles and the Spanish language crowd reacted to Noya's immense grasp of both language and adult concepts.
It's not that "Valentin" is in anyway sappy. Quite the opposite. The film, in fact, smacks of the sort of richly developed, straightforward storytelling of William Saroyan or Italo Calvino. Agresti brings Valentin into the realm of political discourse when a local preacher utilizes the pulpit to extol the virtues of Ché Guevara and in discussions of his father's unfortunate anti-Semitism.
Interestingly enough, Agresti plays his own father in the film, a move that doubtlessly served the purpose of exorcising some of the resentment he has allowed to fully develop as an adult.
Whereas Agresti could have easily played Noya as some sort of unbearably cute "slap my face and call me Sally" Macauley Culkin clone, he resists, instead allowing the young boy's obvious natural intelligence and curiosity to shine through.
The result is a film that's far more "Amelie" than "Home Alone," and far more enjoyable than any coming of age Disney flick.
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Written by Richard Sharp
Review Date: April 30, 2004
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