Extraordinary Stories

Mariano Llinás's 2008 film runs past four hours, was made for thirty thousand dollars, and changed the direction of Argentine independent cinema. There are three men, unnamed, known only as X, H and Z. One witnesses a murder and hides in a hotel. One takes over the job of a dead manager and finds a coded notebook and a map. One is hired to travel down a river and investigate a set of meaningless monuments built along the bank. Llinás braids the three strands across eighteen chapters and uses a narrator who almost never stops: the characters barely speak, the voice tells it. The result plays with storytelling itself, dragging the machinery of adventure fiction out into the Argentine countryside. It won the audience award and a special jury prize at the Buenos Aires independent film festival. Who it's for: patient viewers who enjoy long form and narrative games. Who it's not for: anyone who cannot take four hours and a voice-over that never lets up.