Fantasia Review of La Antena / The Aerial (2007)

13 July 2008 10:08 AM, PDT | From TwitchFilm.net | See recent Twitch news

Argentine director Esteban Sapir’s sophomore feature La Antena (The Aerial, 2007) is densely marbled with cinematic citation, juggling freely the silent film conventions gleefully mined by Guy Maddin, with clear tips of the hat to Georges Méliès’ La Lune à un mètre (Man in the Moon, 1898) and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), and more veiled references to Alex Proyas’s Dark City (1998), Higuchinsky’s spiraling nightmare Uzumaki (2000), and the numerically confused plot contrivances of Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s 6ixtynin9 (1999).  Its kinetic and innovative use of intertitles reminds of Timur Bekmambetov’s Nochnoy dozor (Nightwatch, 2004) and its criticism of consumerist society and television brainwashing harbors a cautionary touch of John Carpenter’s They Live (1988).

Which is not to say La Antena is derivative.  It achieves a singularly unique and vibrant synergy through its rampant citations in what Hollywood Reporter’s Gregory Valens describes as “a poetic attempt to recreate a world through the

Michael Guillen

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