The Aerial

A city has lost its voice. People speak but no sound comes; what they say appears in the air as letters and is read. The city has one television channel and its owner is Mr TV. He controls the food distribution as well. He is preparing a new plan: through broadcasting he will take people's words entirely. He holds one voice; a woman called The Voice can still sing and her face is kept hidden. A technician, his daughter and a boy with no eyes try to stop it. Esteban Sapir writes and directs. Alejandro Urdapilleta, Valeria Bertuccelli and Julieta Cardinali are in the cast. It is an Argentine production. The film was made in the form of silent cinema; black and white, with intertitles and no spoken sound. The narrative refers openly to German and Soviet cinema of the twenties; the compositions and effects are built with techniques of that period. The intertitles are placed inside the narrative; the letters are part of the space and the characters touch them. The matter it treats is ownership of media; one channel holding both the broadcast and the food is a direct allegory. Most of the effects were produced in camera on a low budget. The film won prizes at festivals and took a place of its own in Argentine cinema. Its limit is accessibility; the form is demanding and the allegory direct. Who it is for: viewers who like experimental cinema and references to silent film. Who it is not for: the form is tiring, the argument plain, and the characters thin.