Whisky

Jacobo runs a small sock factory in Montevideo. Every day is the same; he opens at the same hour, does the same work, speaks to nobody. Marta has worked there for years and is inside the same order. Then Jacobo's brother Herman arrives; he lives in Brazil, his business is doing well, and he is coming for the setting of their mother's headstone. Jacobo wants to look well to his brother. He asks something of Marta: for a few days she will act as his wife. She agrees. They have a photograph taken; the photographer asks for a smile and tells them to say whisky. Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll write and direct. Andrés Pazos, Mirella Pascual and Jorge Bolani are in the cast. It is a Uruguayan, Argentine, German and Spanish co-production. The film took a prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. Its style is minimal; the camera does not move, the shots are fixed and the characters explain almost nothing. The humour comes out of the situation itself and the narrative underlines no joke. The matter it treats is whether a life can be told to another person; Jacobo tries and does not manage it. Marta is the real centre and the film gives her the last word. Its limit is pace; the narrative is very slow and there is almost no dramatic event. Who it is for: viewers who like Latin American independent cinema and minimal style. Who it is not for: it is very slow, emotionally cold, and the ending is left open.