Agustín Adba's Penélope: Artisanal Argentine Cinema

Penélope, Agustín Adba (2018)

The first shot of Agustín Adba's Penélope shows a television control room crammed with a profusion of bright screens, multiple TV programs flashing simultaneously. Next, the actor Victor (Sérgio Pangaro), who is being interviewed in this same studio, reflects on his old-fashioned training, a style punctuated by drama and maximalism, equating it with Orpheus' love for Eurydice. Both real acting and genuine, mythical love feel timeworn in contrast to the shallowness of those screens, evoking the quintessence of much of the contemporary artistic world.

These juxtaposed scenes open Abda's opera prima, which premiered in the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival – BAFICI in April 2018. The film swings between the eternal love heralded by Victor, applicable both to life and artistic creation, and the lavish parties attended by producers, real and aspiring actors. The frivolity, vanity, and silliness of this world full of drugs, puerile dialogue, and affected gestures make us wonder about the creative calling of its members and the works they have to offer.

Penélope, Agustín Adba (2018)

In this atmosphere moves Penélope (an accomplished Cumelen Sanz), a young architecture student who, without guilt or second thought, enjoys multiple and frequent sexual encounters with the men and women around her.  Confident, unpretentious, and unsentimental, she personifies the opposite of the myth of ever-lasting love proposed by Victor. She looks for passion and pleasure, behavior not entirely accepted if carried out so naturally by a woman.

Adba crafts his main female character carefully, without hyperbole. Her sexual appetites express neither madness nor symptoms of a previous trauma. She is simply a young, free-spirited woman who knows what she wants, to the anger and despair of some men, including Victor.  In that vein, the director subtly exposes one of the essential elements of these old tales of romantic love, e.g. the stereotyping of female roles and the subjection of women, both sustained by unequal power relations.

Penélope, Agustín Adba (2018)

Under the broad umbrella of the so-called Argentine independent cinema, the film cultivates casual dialogue, close examination of the idiosyncrasies of the ordinary everyday, and fleeting moments that criticize the banality and commodification of the artistic world. Artisanal films like Penélope attest to a difficult challenge in the country today; in Argentina, the current condition of independent cinema is worrisome. Despite a lack of production resources and the reluctance of exhibitors and distributors to screen independent Argentine cinema, initiatives like Penélope are worth it. As Abda recently said in an interview, "cinema [still] should be made, not be cried about."

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Essay by Dr. Paula Halperin
Associate Professor of Cinema Studies and History
SUNY Purchase

Guest Curator, Filmatique