Navidad by Sebastiàn Lelio

More than strictly a movie, this film is a sort of glimpse through the hole that the director has carved into the wall of a country house where a young couple is spending New Year’s Eve. But far from being interested, the spectator ends up tired, feeling a sense of watching nothing but their lack of communication and damaged intimacy. The dialogues are these but they could perfectly well be any others, any other silly conversation; few things make sense in this strange exercise which fails to stimulate us. We hardly get involved with the characters and can’t help feeling like voyeurs of a tasteless show.

This young couple is spending a weekend in an empty house, but apparently, not because of love or friendship, just because she wants to find a box with old records which had belonged to her father - and maybe with the pretext that the Christmas of the title is a moment when people come together, since the filmmaker has stated that he wanted to use Catholic references. But they have very little in common. Only when a younger girl appears on the scene does a weird relationship begin to arise in the group. Insipid anecdotes, plus simple and unoriginal camera movements, make this film more than dispensable.

Andrea Franco