Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Rolling Family / Familia Rodante / Argentina / 2004

NYFF COVERAGE – Cramped in the back of a tiny motor home, beset by gauchos, tooth aches and engine trouble, squabbling and making love, sweating and hungry, Emilia and her “rolling family” trundle through the highways, dirt roads, farmlands and jungles of Argentina. Pablo Trapero’s film documents these comic and painful trials in uncomfortably tight compositions, evoking the nervy claustrophobia of a family road trip and the difficulty of putting up with one’s relatives.

Emilia, the grandmother and family matriarch, has been invited to a wedding in her hometown of Misiones in the north of Argentina, near the Brazilian border. Excited by the prospect of a family reunion, she insists that her extended family join her: her two daughters, their husbands, children, pets, and problems. With their enforced proximity, troubles old and new rise to the surface and threaten to pull the family apart, as their ancient mode of transport begins to deteriorate from the sheer weight of their gathering.

Rolling Family sets up a familiar dichotomy: traditional values and common sense, combined with a sense of nature and the country, are contrasted with urban sophistication, neurosis, and selfishness. The bustling, Europhilic Buenos Aires contrasts with the simple, indigenous Misiones. These two extremes are best represented by Emilia, on the one hand, and by her son-in-law, Ernesto, on the other. The wise, old grandmother has maintained a rural oasis in the middle of Buenos Aires, a haven for cats and parrots and chickens, and observes the family’s rifts and romances with patience and equanimity. By contrast, the fussy, citified Ernesto does not seem to be at home anywhere. He is of no help with the many necessary auto repairs, and worse yet, he attempts to use this family trip as an opportunity to rekindle his old romance with his wife’s sister, Marta.

Once the family reaches their destination, the film’s awkward close-ups give way to a more expansive view, suggesting the serenity and simple jubilation of the country. The country wedding and the traditional milongas echo the tranquility with which Emilia observes her family’s troubles: “In life you have to learn to lose too. Not everything goes your way. That’s life.” In familiar terms, the film’s conclusion posits Emilia as an emblem of an old-world wisdom and calm that has been lost in the cramped and anxious life of the city.

by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Matanza Cine/Buena Onda Films 35mm print
11 Oct 2004 8:50 PM | Submit Comment