The Life of Fish

Matías Bize's 2010 film La vida de los peces (The Life of Fish) takes place over a single evening at a Chilean house party. Andrés (Santiago Cabrera) is visiting Chile for the first time in 10 years, but he's due to fly back to his adopted Berlin the next day. The action of the film consists solely of Andrés wandering from room to room, catching up with people dear to him that he hasn't seen in a long time. Conversations with the friends of his youth hint at the tragedy they shared, which ultimately drove Andrés abroad, but it is Beatriz (Blanca Lewin) who ultimately lies at the centre of Andrés' youth, and their reunion after a decade leads them to a difficult choice. For the most part, this film is intolerable melodrama. The script is unfocused (there's a bizarre scene where some pre-teens ask Andrés a series of graphic questions about what sex acts he's partaken in), and the acting lacks subtlety. The soundtrack is the emotionally gushing pop music one associates more with late '90s teen television dramas like "Party of Five" than serious films. Now, the ending of his film is powerful enough that I'm happy I held out and watched the whole thing, but it's bizarre that Chile thought this film worthy of submission for the Best Foreign Film category at the 2011 Academy Awards.