Sur

The exiled Solanas marked his return to post-dictatorship Argentina with this melancholy and enthrallingly cinematic love letter - to home, liberty and love itself. It takes the form of a long night's wandering through a city by political prisoner Floreal (Sola); freed after five years in jail, he finds he needs time for reflection before returning to wife Rosi (Pecoraro). It begins and ends with a tango, whose impassioned, poetic impact it shares: the main set is a sad café, suffused in misty greys and blues through which flashes a red neon sign ('Sur' - 'South'). An old musician sings as figures from Floreal's past pass by: the dead, the disappeared, stopping to share memories and stories, bringing Floreal up to date. He discovers Rosi has taken up with his best friend Roberto the Corsican (Léotard), and flashbacks show how these two lonely people came painfully together. How can Floreal reunite with his wife, with his life? Solanas excitingly fuses theatrical forms, song, poetry, operatic choreography, the personal and the political. The chronology may be broken, but the emotional flow is sustained, making it almost unbearably moving when morning comes and the long-separated husband and wife prepare to come together.