"The Window"

By David Hudson on 05/06/2009

[Updated through 5/7]

"Argentinean filmmaker Carlos Sorín ('Historias mínimas,' 'El Perro') gracefully reflects on late-life recollections and mortality itself in this wry, would-be narrative B-side to Terence Davies's nostalgic cine-essay 'Of Time and the City,' inspired by the spirit of Bergman's 'Wild Strawberries,'" writes Aaron Hillis in the Voice. "Wisely eschewing a musical score or a denser storyline to focus attention to its expansive images and scrupulous details, ['The Window'] takes place over one day in the remaining life of Antonio, an octogenarian writer who only sees the world through his bedside window in the Patagonian countryside."

"On this particular day he is awaiting the arrival of his estranged son, Pablo (Jorge Diez), a renowned concert pianist now living in Europe," writes Stephen Holden. "When Pablo eventually appears, he is accompanied by his wife (Carla Peterson), an impatient woman chained to her cellphone. The Champagne is poured, and a toast is drunk, but it is just a polite formality, as one generation awaits the passing of the old."

"If the term 'novelistic' is a somewhat exhausted compliment in film criticism, there's been a puzzling paucity of useful comparisons between movies and short stories," writes Joseph Jon Lanthier in Slant. "Perhaps this reflects the current zeitgeist of the publishing industry: While its formal traditions are singularly fecund, short fiction has developed an undeniably unsellable stigma. It's refreshing, then, to find a film that not only exercises the temporal economy and impressionistic characterization of the short story but also invites comparisons to the mode's exemplars with allusive alacrity."

"Imagine 'Under the Volcano' reconceived with mostly heavy-handed magical realist touches and no alcoholic stupors," suggests Keith Uhlich in Time Out New York.

"'The Window' doubles as a challenging movie about the movies' capacity for affording immortality," argues Henry Stewart in Reverse Shot.

"In one respect, and in one respect only, do I find 'The Window' at all comparable to 'Wild Strawberries,' and that is in the real-life gravity and majesty of the aged protagonists of both films," writes Andrew Sarris in the New York Observer. "Still, 'The Window' is not without a certain visual spell that makes it a first-rate artistic achievement. So see it, but be sure to order a DVD of 'Wild Strawberries,' if only to confirm why 'The Window' has struck me as something of a disappointment despite its undeniably greater realism than 'Wild Strawberries.' Perhaps it is because I have reached a point in my life when I can do with a little less realism about old age that I'm so hard on 'The Window.'"

At Film Forum through May 19; preceded by George Griffin's three-minute short, "The Bather," which, Holden notes, is "an evocative collage in which an animated flipbook of a dancing woman is superimposed over the filmed image of a woman bathing behind a shower curtain to the sounds of Bach harpsichord music."

Updates: "I have no issue with individuals disliking the movie," writes Joseph Jon Lanthier in an entry at Bright Lights After Dark that references a few of the reviews cited above. "What I find most unprofessional and indeed rather puerile is the manner in which Sorín's proclaimed Bergmanic influence is being used as a veritable yardstick against which 'The Window' must be judged." But here's where this is eventually leading: "If we want films to improve, we must ultimately lead by example. The critical cookie cutters - the promo material connections, the Andre Bazin frame-works, the most obvious points of interpretive entry - must be hurled into the flames and melted down for future smithing. We can, after all, be just as formulaic as the Hollywood box office mechanism we love to vilify."

"The sparseness of 'The Window' is best reflected in its run time: just over seventy minutes," writes Michael Tully at Hammer to Nail. "In every single way, Sorin's direction is a lesson in the power of economy."

Update, 5/7: "'The Window' can be too oblique at times, and too pointed at others," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club. "When 'The Window' is really working, even the condition of the champagne - now flat from disuse - has added meaning."

[Photo: "The Window," Film Movement, 2008]

Tags: Carlos Sorín, Ingmar Bergman, The Window, Wild Strawberries