Whisky (2004)

This droll, deadpan comedy from Uruguay, clearly influenced by directors such as Jarmusch and Kaurismaki, is a real find. Directors Rebella (who killed himself shortly after this film was released) and Stoll, tell the story of two middle aged Jewish brothers. The elder brother has remained in Uruguay, running a decrepit sock factory, and acts taciturn and resentful, feeling life has cheated on him. The younger, more easy going brother, has moved to Brazil, where he has raised a family and runs a successful textile factory in the Sao Paulo area. When their mother dies, the brother in Brazil returns to Uruguay for the funeral. So that his younger brother will not pity him, his older brethren asks a middle aged, somewhat plump employee to pretend to be with his wife when his brother returns (this plot point is not really very believable, but in the cinema you sort of accept it). There is little else plot wise to the movie, as the brothers and the fake wife tour some of the deserted, sunless beaches of Uruguay to kill time and to get acquainted (or reacquainted) with each other as well as to settle past scores. To those that thing South America is everywhere a tropical and exotic place, they might be surprised to see a movie that is somewhat reminiscent of the old Eastern Bloc movies (Uruguay is well to the south of the tropics, its climate is temperate, and is the least typically south American of Spanish speaking nations in the continent). In a way, this movie might be also be a metaphor of Uruguay, once a country that was called the Switzerland of South America for its democracy and progressivism, but that in the last few decades has seen nasty military dictatorships, and some of its infrastructure and social capital run down. Worth seeing and quite moving.

I saw this film at the 2005 Palm Springs International Film Festival. This movie is low in budget but big in charm. Jacabo is a dour, middle aged bachelor who lived with his mother. He runs a small run down sock factory in Montevideo with archaic outdated machinery that employs only three people. One, is his assistant Marta. His much more successful brother Herman is also in the sock business in but in Brazil and is married with a family and a seasoned traveler who is up on the latest in technology and outgoing and gregarious and everything Jacabo is not or chose not to be. The mother has died and Herman is coming to Montevideo. To help polish his image Jacabo has enlisted Marta to pose as his wife during Herman's stay. They even have a studio portrait photograph taken of themselves as a happily married couple to display on the mantle. Here is where the film's title Whiskey originates as in Uruguay they say "whiskey" instead of "cheese" when posing for a photograph to muster up a smile. This is an unassuming and unpretentious film as it deals with the mundane, everyday existence of the lives of Jacabo who is trapped in his life and Marta who wishes for something more. This is a slow moving film as it examines the dullness of routine and the ordinary taken to extreme. It has it's moments and there is more to it really than there seems but the general film goer is going to find this too slow and dull with not enough to say "whiskey" about and the roles call for no outstanding acting performances to help carry it. I would give it a 6.0 of a possible 10

Droll, understated comedy that also works as an allegorical account of the general state of affairs in Uruguay these days. Jacobo Köller (Andres Pazos) runs a small, down at the heels sock factory in Montevideo. He's an avoidant, depressive, aging bachelor who had taken care of his ailing mother for years until her recent death.Now it is time for her Matzeivah (a ceremony at which a tombstone is placed on her grave), and Jacobo is obliged to invite his younger brother Herman (Jorge Bolani), who moved north years earlier to Brazil, where he has a wife and family and runs a highly successful sock factory.For reasons never made clear, Jacobo feels he must pretend to be recently married. He imposes on the long suffering Marta (Mirella Pascual), who is his forewoman at the sock factory, to act the role of his spouse.Set against the mind-numbing routines of Jacobo and Marta's dull lives, Herman arrives like a Spring breeze. He's energetic, upbeat, full of corny jokes, even vaguely seductive toward Marta. At his insistence, the trio venture on hour east for a couple of days to the seaside resort of Piriapolis, on the so-called Uruguayan Riviera.Like the run down neighborhood, household and factory inhabited by Jacobo, Piriapolis has also seen better days. The threesome represent about half the audience at a pathetic nightclub where the lead singer is a 12 year old. The only other guests at the hotel seem to be a hick couple of honeymooners from the sticks.Near the end of his visit, Herman gives Jacobo an envelope of cash, guilt money to make up for never having helped care for their mother himself. He urges Jacobo to replace his out of date sock making machines. Jacobo instead tries to blow it all in the casino but fails: in fact, he wins big! Not too many years ago Uruguay was a thriving, economically successful nation, but, not unlike Jacobo and his shabby factory, messy apartment and old car that won't start, it's a place that has fallen on hard times, while its larger neighbors – Argentina to the west and Brazil to the north (represented by Herman), have, relatively speaking, become vibrant economic giants. The film does portray this larger surround in which the characters work out their individual destinies."Whisky," by the way, is the word that the photographers ask the somber Jacobo and Marta to say to evoke grins for their "wedding" picture, like our proverbial "cheese." "Whisky" is one of 10 recent films from developing nations touring in the "Global Lens 2005" series. (In Spanish) My rating: 7/10 (B). (Seen on 04/02/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.

I am 20 years old and I live in Uruguay, the place in which the movie "Whisky" is set. I am fond of movies that deal with characters you can sit next to on the bus, and this movie not only shows people that DO exist, attitudes that move ourselves around day after day and ways of life that are acquired almost subconsciously, but it is able to capture the essence of a society that has a personality of its own. Many people have found this movie depressing, boring, pointless, but I find it brilliant because it is exactly through these characteristics that the movie is able to show the core of who we really are. I know that every Uruguayan must have seen him/herself on that screen at some point and the movie has the incredible ability of making you love who you are entirely, good and bad aspects, detached from the objective perspective through which it is shown. The sense of belonging in which I was wrapped was overwhelming, and this is a feeling that resides within us; this movie was able to grab it and put it right in front of me.