Film Reviews

Las Acacias

• Rating:
• Director: Pablo Giorgelli
• Starring: German Da Silva
• Details: Argentina / 85mins (12A).

A touching slow-burner Las Acacias turns out to be but for eighty of the trim eighty-five minutes here there's little or nothing to keep interest levels up.
Unkempt and unshaven Ruben (Da Silva) is a middle-aged truck driver for a lumber company who makes regular trips across the Argentine/Paraguayan border. On this particular trip, he's paid by a friend to pick up single mother Jacinta (Duarte) and her toddler daughter Anahi (Mamani). The monosyllabic and emotionally cooled Ruben isn't sympathetic to Jacinta's plight, who plans to stay in illegally in Buenos Aires and work, and Anahi's cries begin to irk the grumpy driver. However, over the course of their lengthy journey the two embark on an unlikely friendship.
You can see the remake now: a surly Hugh Jackman behind the wheel, a sultry Eva Mendes in the passenger seat; throw in a gangster ex-boyfriend (Christopher Walken maybe?), a misunderstanding with the border police, and a forced stopover in a motel on a rainy night and you got a road movie. As obvious as that sounds, there's a decent chance it would be more exciting that Pablo Giorgelli's film. The writer-director is after subtlety here, pulling back when most directors would plough in, but this commendable approach can render his film slight.
Las Acacias' opening sequence, like There Will Be Blood, is sans dialogue; where PT Anderson set up everything you needed to know about Daniel Plainview in the latter's opening salvo, however, Giorgelli's 'less is more tactic' leaves the viewer in the dark when it comes to Ruben. Apart from being a truck driver and in need of cash, Ruben remains a mystery and we learn little more as the film progresses. Ditto Jacinta: her reasons for leaving Paraguay and her insistence that Anahi 'has no father' aren't investigated. But all this is ignoring all the good things about this little drama. Ruben's transformation from selfish discourteous brute to softened gentleman, along with his growing attraction for Jacinta and fondness for her daughter, is so tender you'd barely notice it. All of which is believable. Kudos then to the director's vision - the film is consistent in its brevity.
But consistency will only hold you for so long and Giorgelli does himself or the film no favours when for long stretches his slim film, bar the rumbling of the truck and the squeak of the cabin seats, is played out in silence. Jacinta's character undergoes no developments, either, seemingly here only hasten Ruben's conversion and to warm the cockles of his trousers.

Review by Gavin Burke