Film Review: "Lost Embrace"

While not completely fulfilling, the prizewinning “Lost Embrace” is an enjoyable look at a distinctive version of family and community set in the largest city in Argentina.

“Lost Embrace” (El Abrazo Partido) stars Daniel Hendler as Ariel Makaroff, a restless college dropout turned clerk who’s had about enough of working in his mother’s lingerie store in a corroding downtown Buenos Aires mini mall. His estranged father has been out of the picture for years. But in his absence Ariel has been accepted into the extended family of the shopping mall. The window front –whether it is from laziness or economic inadequacy – still features his father’s name, even though it’s been a long time since he kept shop.

Ariel has a strong resentment toward his father for committing what he sees as a calculated abandonment under the pretext of a wartime call of duty. He is also frustrated that his mother and older brother seem to have partially shrugged it off. Ariel never wants to forgive his father for his past actions, but is forced to confront his perception of family history.

Ariel is a man bent on escape. He once studied architecture, but has since dropped out of school. His sketches are all that remain from that phase of his life. Now, he reasons, is as good a time as any leave Buenos Aires as he sees his life heading down the path of a slow motion car wreck. He decides he will head to Europe, where he can sightsee and eventually settle in Poland, his ancestral homeland by way of his grandmother.

The cast of characters who operate stores in this mall make up a unique and slightly odd bunch of personalities. Ariel’s brother, Joseph, is a telephone headset-clad importer-exporter, who constantly tries to fast-talk his way to the next profitable shipment of cheap, junky toys. Two Italian brothers are better at arguing with each other than attracting customers. One old-timer named Osvado never seems to sell anything.

These characters are certainly original in their own right. But it seems like any second-rate mall where high-powered light bulbs seem to be at a premium and air conditioning is not in the budget would attract such quirky personalities.

“A mall is a world of appearances,” Ariel says, and his own mall is no exception. Behind the bright-painted glass storefronts exteriors, this mall is teeming with its own underbelly of stories. In moments of voyeurism, sweeping pans across the storefront windows reveal there might be more going on than meets the consumer’s eye.

Take for instance the story of Rita (Silvina Bosco), a seductive blonde who runs an internet store with a much, much older man – is he her husband or father?

In the extensive, anonymous sprawl of a metropolis like Buenos Aires, the film presents and interesting example of how people from vastly different walks of life are able to form thriving small communities based on common interests. In this case, it is the conservation of their mall. The film does not need to see any of the mall characters anywhere but inside the mall – after all, this is their makeshift neighborhood and center of the universe.

While there are certainly some funny moments in the film, it seems like some lines fall flat during the translation. Most of the film’s humorous lines still work to some degree, but other times moments feel like they have been set up as humorous and ironic, but don’t quite achieve their desired effect.

The active, hand-held feel of the camerawork lends “Lost Embrace” a realistic and honest quality. Though at times the film’s motion borders on dizzyingly excessive, this technique works well the vast majority of the time.

Hendler is good as the uncomfortable, frustrated Ariel. And Adriana Aizemberg is believable as his melodramatic mother.

Some of the films best moments come when it examines stories of the other mall inhabitants. One intriguing sidestory involves a couple from Korea who specialize in Feng Shui paraphernalia. But in most cases, the auxiliary characters come off as shallow and underdeveloped. The film spends the right amount of time introducing these characters, but without much additional detail many seem to end up one dimensional.

Despite its small shortcomings, “Lost Embrace” is certainly a worthwhile experience. Now, if only more run-down mini malls could dig up as much personality, perhaps they’d attract some more customers. Then again maybe many already do, but we outsiders simply don’t know where and how to look.