'Suddenly' is an offbeat story from Argentina's 'New Wave'

Friday, January 09, 2004

By Barry Paris, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Lenin and Mao are lesbians. And they've got their eye on Marcia.

	'SUDDENLY' RATING: R for language, sexual themes and nudity STARRING: Carla Crespo, Tatiana Saphir, Veronica Hassan DIRECTOR: Diego Lerman

That anybody in the 21st century -- lesbians or otherwise -- is even thinking about Lenin and Mao is a rather fetching anachronism in itself. But such is the case with "Suddenly," a combination love story and "road picture" by Argentinean director Diego Lerman.

Carla Crespo and Veronica Hassan play the two punk teenagers -- huge chips on small shoulders, but less tough and less Communist than they look. Tatiana Saphir is Marcia, the unlikely frumpy-dumpy lingerie clerk they abduct at knifepoint for a sexual experience she resists.

A commandeered taxi plus some fancy hitchhiking takes them from the urban sprawl of Buenos Aires to the little seaside town of Rosario, where they are received by Lenin's spry old Aunt Blanca (Beatriz Thibaudin). There are old family issues to be explored here -- with the aid of Blanca's two other boarders -- while Mao and Marcia explore the erotic issues that brought them there.

This is the first feature-length film from director Lerman, a 27-year-old member of Argentina's cinematic "New Wave." It's about existential loneliness and bonds that form, break apart, re-form and rebound -- about going places you've never been, never far from the abyss ... or from redemption.

There is a great deal of alienation in the society it depicts, but no despair. Lerman's wry humor, black-and-white photography and a certain feminine gentility and gentleness see to that, and to the film's humanity. Thibaudin's performance is gorgeous.

Sometimes unexplained things are more satisfying than the explained ones: Marcia's overweight appeal is a phenomenon of Mao's -- and nobody else's -- imagination. Aunt Blanca's ability to connect with her alienated niece is pure serendipity (based as much on their mutual chain-smoking as anything else).

"Love that does not have explanations has proof," says one of the characters -- the mysterious theme of this mysteriously charming odyssey.

Barry Paris can be reached at 412-263-3859.

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