Martin (Hache)

Martín is nineteen and lives in Buenos Aires. He takes an overdose and nearly dies. Whether it was an accident is not clear. His mother sends him to Madrid, to his father. The father is called Martín too; he calls his son Hache. The man is a film director who left Argentina years ago and built his own life; he lives with Alicia, talks with his friend Dante and does not know how to attend to his son. Hache stays in Madrid. The two men are in the same house and try to talk; both are stubborn in the same way. Adolfo Aristarain directs and co-wrote the screenplay. Federico Luppi, Juan Diego Botto, Eusebio Poncela and Cecilia Roth are in the cast. It is an Argentine and Spanish co-production. Aristarain and Federico Luppi worked together across many films and this production stands at the centre of that partnership. The matter it treats is identity and country; the characters constantly argue about where they belong and the film gives no answer. It is weighted toward talk; the long dialogues are its form and they do not look staged. Dante, played by Eusebio Poncela, is the narrative's freest place and carries its arguments. It took nominations at the Goya awards in Spain. Its limits are length and density; the narrative is long, the talk loaded and some sections didactic. Who it is for: viewers who like Argentine and Spanish cinema and drama grounded in conversation. Who it is not for: it is long, heavy, and the plot thin.