Greatest Hits (2012)
When Gabino's father returns home after a long absence, the two men awkwardly attempt to re-establish a relationship; but Gabino and his mother quickly tire of this man who has become a stranger to them and decide to kick him out, before realizing that he has already left. Gabino eventually tracks his father down and spends time with him in his rundown apartment, trying to figure out if there is any possibility for the two of them to ever truly communicate. Though Greatest Hits continues Pereda's exploration of his perennial themes of absence, masculinity and the difficulty of maintaining a family, it opens up a whole new set of aesthetic questions through a bold formal gambit: halfway through, the entire narrative reboots and starts from scratch with another actor playing one of the key characters, leading to different iterations of events already witnessed.
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Reviews
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
I saw this movie at Copenhagen Film-festival (CPH PIX), and even though I had no expectations going in, I was really bored throughout.The story is about a poor family, where the son tries to make money by selling burned copies of a "Greatest Hits"-album with love songs. But for some reason, he memorizes all the songs (and their order), so he can recite them to potential customers. But we never actually see him trying to sell an album, only countless scenes of him sitting and reciting the song-titles. This happens so many times, that you're fed up by the end.At one point, an old man appears in their apartment, being the long-lost deadbeat-dad, returned after 15 years absence or so. They sit around doing nothing, argue a bit, and then they go on a short trip to a nice place in the country. But when they're finally there, the dad insists on them leaving after 5 minutes, because one of his friends needs something from him. The entire 5 minutes are spent with him sitting in his car, staring out of the window... and we just sit there as well.Midway through the movie, the director suddenly starts talking to the main characters for some reason, and it looks like a documentary. But it doesn't happen again, so the continuity is totally off, which seems very weird.Sometimes the plot was kind of hard to follow as well, as they jump back and forth in locations, without any coherence. I liked the characters, even if they were playing themselves (?) - but overall, the movie was really boring and went nowhere.So, Greatest Hits - I don't think so..