Argentine filmmaker Matías Piñeiro is the director of a series of films based on (or, rather, related to) the comedies of William Shakespeare, especially their female characters. In this movie, the comedy is "Twelfth Night", staged in Argentinian Spanish translation in an avant-garde theater (all female actors, no stage, no distancing of actors from spectators, no classical costumes). For the first half of the movie we eavesdrop on conversations of the actresses referring mostly to their love lives. Inevitably, stage roles spill into the real world: the words in a seduction scene in the comedy are used in a real seduction. We hear the lines several times, the meaning changes, we get tantalizing glimpses of the characters and wish we knew them better.
In the second half the film's center changes. We are introduced to the main character, named Viola, the same as one of the stage characters. We get to know more about her than about the other personages. She pedals around Buenos Aires delivering pirated DVDs produced by her live-in boyfriend. She seems to know all the actresses and has a conversation with some of them. As in real life the conversation is rambling, sometimes unfocused and not exempt of some off-stage playacting, dissimulation and and mischief. We finally learn that Viola also has artistic aspirations in spite of what she says in the dialogue.
I liked this movie. It does not tell a tale in the usual sense, but seizes your attention from beginning to end. It gives points of reference that you can connect according to your imagination. The subject (theater spills into real life) is not new and lends itself to pretentiousness, a danger that the director has avoided. And, last but not least, the acting is first rate from all concerned and there is no padding or repetition; the length of the movie (65 minutes) is what the subject warrants.
