The Magic of Boredom

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The New York Sun

Alejandro is a cab-driver in Buenos Aires, Argentina, most often found behind the steering wheel of his taxi, some kind of inert car potato. During the next hour and 20 minutes of Martin Retjman’s “Los Guantes Magicos” (The Magic Gloves) he will go clubbing, sell his cab, get his ears cleaned, buy his cab back, go clubbing again, trade girlfriends, get involved with a failed business venture, go clubbing again, and get his ears cleaned again, and not once will his expression change.

In fact, no one in this movie changes, they’re just six overgrown character tics in search of an auteur: Luis is body-obsessed, Sergio wants to get rich quick, his wife wants to solve everyone’s problems, Alejandro’s ex-girlfriend, Cecilia, is superhumanly tense, and Alejandro’s new girlfriend, Valeria, is superhumanly shallow.

And they all do the same things over and over. They get their ears cleaned, they have dinner, they listen to Sergio’s CD, and they sit in Alejandro’s cab. Back in the late 1980s, deadpan was funny. Indie flicks directed by Hal Hartley and David Lynch used non-reaction shots, square framing, and awkward silences to poke fun at daily life. But this wry observational humor has become so shopworn that I can only imagine it pleases people on a closed feedback loop: from film school, to film festival, and back again.

“Los Guantes Magicos” barely qualifies as a movie — it certainly doesn’t move. It’s more like a series of poses and attitudes held up on flashcards: wry, ironic, deadpan, surreal, wry, ironic, deadpan, surreal. Embarrassingly dated and as slow as molasses in January, this flick only serves a demographic who want to watch a character watch TV expressionlessly for an entire scene.


The New York Sun

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