{"id":1954,"date":"2010-02-13T17:27:25","date_gmt":"2010-02-13T16:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/blog\/?p=1954"},"modified":"2015-03-29T17:47:59","modified_gmt":"2015-03-29T17:47:59","slug":"berlin-counting-of-the-damages-misses-a-few","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=1954","title":{"rendered":"BERLIN FILM REVIEW: &#8216;Counting of the Damages&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/counting-of-the-damages-x650.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6505\" src=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/counting-of-the-damages-x650.jpg\" alt=\"counting of the damages x650\" width=\"650\" height=\"434\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/counting-of-the-damages-x650.jpg 650w, https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/counting-of-the-damages-x650-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a>By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n<p>BERLIN \u2013 It\u2019s never a good sign at a festival press screening when the person to your right gets up and leaves after 15 minutes and the one to your left falls asleep, but they were both apt comments on Ines de Oliveira Cezar\u2019s morose Argentinian film \u201cThe Counting of the Damages\u201d (El recuento de los danos).<\/p>\n<p>The remainder of the packed Forum audience remained but the end of the film, which uses Argentina\u2019s history of families being torn apart as background for what might be an Oedipal love affair, was met with silence aside from the bustle of people leaving. It\u2019s hard to see the film finding a better reception elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>Told elliptically with many static scenes, the story is of a young man (Santiago Gobernori) who shows up at a factory to report on its performance for distant owners. He finds that the general manager has died and the man\u2019s widow (Eva Blanco) and her brother-in-law (Marcelo D\u2019Andrea, pictured right with Goernori and Blanco) are running the place. They are quickly at odds over its operation.<\/p>\n<p>But then, abruptly, the young man and the smokily elegant and grief-stricken woman erupt in moments of heightened excitement and are soon in bed. The coincidence of the late husband\u2019s death in a car accident and the young man\u2019s arrival, and the fact that the woman was parted from a son two decades earlier in political upheaval are then used to drive the tale.<\/p>\n<p>It has no power, however, as the scenes fail to engage and the performances are left to drift without purpose.<\/p>\n<p>Venue: Berlin International Film Festival, Forum; Cast: Santiago Gobernori, Eva Blanco, Marcelo D\u2019Andrea, Agustina Munoz, Dalila Cebrian; Director, writer, producer: Ines de Oliveira Cezar; Writer: Anna Berard; Director of photography: Gerardo Silvatici; Production designer: Aili Chen; Executive producer: Alejandro Israel; Production: Ajimolido Films, Buenos Aires; Not rated; running time, 80 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ray Bennett BERLIN \u2013 It\u2019s never a good sign at a festival press screening when the person to your right gets up and leaves after 15 minutes and the one to your left falls asleep, but they were both &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=1954\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2352,5,14],"tags":[83,226,379,929],"class_list":["post-1954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-berlin-international-film-festival","category-film","category-reviews","tag-el-recuento-de-los-danos","tag-the-counting-of-the-damages","tag-berlin-international-film-festival","tag-oliveira-cezar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1954"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6507,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions\/6507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}