Searching in Vain for Heartstrings
Judging by the critical praise heaped upon Francisco Vargas's 2005 film "The Violin," which begins a one-week engagement today at Film Forum, foreign films don't need to do anything other than look pretty and have the right politics to succeed these days. Shot in lush black and white, Mr. Vargas's film is set during a series of indigenous peasant revolts in Mexico in the 1970s, although you'd be hard-pressed to figure that out unless you read it somewhere or know enough about Mexican history to place the action without any help.
Mr. Vargas believes that less is more, and he does his best to hide the motivations of his characters from the audience, with the result being an oblique, plodding flick that looks and sounds good but serves up the same old stock characters.
A nice old man named Don Plutarco [spelled this way on almost every website found. Never spelled with an h] (Ángel Tavira) plays violin professionally, accompanied by his son Genero (Gerardo Taeracena) his grandson Lucio (Mario Garibaldi). When government soldiers show up and raid their village, the revolutionaries take to the hills. Don Plutarco winds up befriending the military commander while engaged in a dangerous game of cat and mouse as he smuggles much-needed ammunition out of the village and into the waiting revolutionaries' laps. Of course, given the speed at which "The Violin" unfolds, it's less a game of cat and mouse than one of sloth and turtle. Our heroes are the resolute old man, the smiling sadistic military commander, the committed hot-headed rebel, and the cute kid. But every time anyone in clean clothes shows up, they're so evil they're practically twirling their moustaches. Maybe it's me, but this film was boring.
Through December 11 (209 W. Houston St., between Sixth Avenue and Varick Street, 212-727-8110).
