O ARQUIPÉLAGO

A delicately drawn portrait of a discreetly unconventional family in Brazil, The Archipelago manages to share a space-time with its protagonist, the Chilean Álvaro Riveros. So much so, it gives the feeling that the diary of this man, drained by successive exclusions, has been filmed “from the outside”. Posted, for example, in front of the doorway of Álvaro’s room in his shared rented flat, the camera’s static frame-within-frame suggests the palpable uneasiness of a man who no longer feels in his place. A photojournalist dismissed by his newspaper, a separated father – Álvaro has “no more patience”. Yet by filming fragments of his daily life and that of the family he left, the film seems to work at giving him back this patience cinematographically. Just as it renders, through the simple power of the editing, some intimate moments he perhaps no longer enjoys with his son Giovane. A tiger, a zebra, a dromedary, a bear: in light touches, an ordinary visit to the zoo helps to re-infuse a devitalised existence with the out-of-the-ordinary and an almost surreal beauty. “Sweetheart…”: the love song that delimits the narrative space for the story of Álvaro’s ex-partner and their son gives lustre to the dead star of their love, and sets a deep well of melancholy at the heart of this film on personal insularity. (Charlotte Garson)