The Uruguayan “There is a door there”, by the brothers Juan and Facundo Ponce de León, on two patients of ELA, and the Argentine “the twilight of the species”, by Alberto Romero, about the fauna in danger.
Two really unique works coincide, which show the wealth and inventiveness of documentary cinema in these latitudes: Uruguayan “There is a door there”of the brothers Juan and Facundo Ponce de Leónand “The twilight of the species”of Alberto Romerothe same as “Own meat”where a bull, in the voice of Arnaldo Andrécommented on the problems of the field and the life of the cows until the trip in “La Barca de Caronte”, as the bull to the cage truck in which the poor animals are overwhelmed to the slaughterhouse.
His new film is set on the outskirts of a ghost town, Naicó, Toay Department, La Pampa (formerly 600 inhabitants, now only three). The first images discover a Caldén tree, and around piquillines, Puna Pasto, hairy cat, small cascarudos, tordos, then armadillos, deer, pichiciegos. The atmosphere has a strange, different light that makes everything look like a painting. It is that Romero has worked with infrared photography, not only to do something beautiful but because those images illustrate a story that will occur in the future. In that story we are already in 2063, and due to the repeated burning of forests oxygen has been impoverished in such a way that the people who can go to other planets. All we see are the memories of a grandmother who tells her granddaughter how the earth was before.
The woman, embodied by Marta Lubosevokes his distant expeditions as a biologist, the people he met, the nature that the girl will not be able to know. It lists the growing loss of species because of the poaching hunters, and explains the different kinds of fire, natural, renovators, controlled, or infernal, uncontrollable, caused by the carelessness or indolence of men. It is not a newspaper documentary, it is an elegy (and a warning) located in the not so distant future. How much is missing for 2063?
For its part, “There is a door there” Refer to the near past. It is formally a film of the simplest, almost every flat and contraplage of two men chatting, and yet with only that manages to excite. Is that one of those men, Fernando SuredaAccountant, former manager of the Uruguayan Football Association, has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and demands a national euthanasia law to relieve their ills and those of as many as him. And the other, Enric Benito Oliverspecialist in palliative care and author of “The art of dying”He wants to change his head a little so he can go in peace with himself.
The two are very sincere, also very fun, they are making friends, the relationship of the patient with the family suffered, the resignation of the position of head of the family, the possibility of death by sedation, the light offered by Daniel Bohm By joining quantum physics with spirituality, the recognition of Los Angeles, which is not anything else and children who accompany the patient, and, among other conversations, the scope of human law. Advanced, the Uruguayan Criminal Code already established in 1934 the concept of “pious homicide”, but leaving the resolution of each case in the hands of the judge.
Ironically, these friends cannot shake hands, because one is in Montevideo and the other in Mallorca, it is 2020, the year of the plague, and all communication is done through video calls. Hence the plane-continuous, interrupted, rather enriched, by a selection of family photos, two very short presentations for and against euthanasia in the Congress of Spain, and the latest photos of hugs, toast and dance, two years after. Mounting, Guillermo Madeiro. Music, with a very pleasant final theme, Luciano Supervielle.
“There is a door there” (Uruguay, 2024); Dir.: Juan and Facundo Ponce de León. Documentary.
“The twilight of species” (Argentina, 2025); Dir.: Alberto Romero. Documentary.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
