Sweet Money

Fernando Ayala's 1982 Argentine film follows two brothers-in-law running a small medicine cabinet factory. Carlos runs into an old acquaintance from his military service and receives an attractive offer. Money starts flowing and life changes from one day to the next. The film addresses the economic period of the late seventies directly. The normalisation of making money through financial operations while industry collapsed, the devaluing of production and how fragile that arrangement was sit at the centre. The title comes from an expression used at the time. It was made in the last year of the military dictatorship, and that it managed this under censorship is notable. Federico Luppi and Julio De Grazia play the two men. The comic register is what makes the harshness possible. Who it's for: those who like Argentine cinema and satire built on economics. Who it's not for: viewers without the context; the film assumes some prior knowledge of the economic policies of the period.