Greatest Hits

Alonso Díaz de la Vega4.5

El centro de Los mejores temas es la ausencia del padre, que Nicolás Pereda representa con una franqueza formidable, pero lo ingenioso de la película es la forma en que el lenguaje narrativo y actoral expresan esta idea. Sin advertencia alguna, Gabino Rodríguez comienza a interpretar al paria Emilio, que hasta ese momento había sido interpretado por su padre, José Rodríguez, pero después entra Luis Rodríguez como Emilio y la película adquiere un tono documental. El padre es un fantasma alrededor del cual la película se reinventa y cuestiona su identidad; la ilusión de realidad colapsa como el concepto de paternidad cuando un hombre decide abandonar a su hijo.

K4.5

I dislike the synopsis for Greatest Hits that is currently up on Letterboxd. First off, the first two sentences give away too much about the plot. Good thing I read it after watching the film. One should go into Greatest Hits knowing the two things about it: its "drifting" between fictional narrative and documentary and how halfway through the story restarts from the beginning, but with a new actor and the events we've just witnessed become altered because of this incredibly significant change.But what really caught my attention was the "drifting from fiction to documentary," part, which brought back the satisfyingly puzzling experience of Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up, which is probably my favorite film of all time as of right now. And just like in Close-Up, Greatest Hits' execution of this ambitious concept is incredibly well-done. The story is simple, but the aesthetics and what Director Nicolás Pereda is trying to accomplish is anything but. There is absolutely no true distinction between what is fiction and what is documentary in Greatest Hits besides one thing...Music plays a huge role in Greatest Hits, more than the actual film will actually lead you to believe. Besides the fact that Gabino is memorizing tracks of a CD for a good portion of the film and works with CDs, sometimes randomly during the middle of a scene, music will start playing and everyone will freeze where they are. This happens when the first actor is introduced, the second, and a few times in between. But what does this mean? What's the significance of this? Well, I thought it meant that we are transitioning from fiction to documentary or vice versa. But which is which? Just when I think I've figured out what's fiction and what's documentary, something happens which completely obliterates what I thought previously. In the second half of Greatest Hits, we see the film crew in the background setting up equipment and such while characters are talking, which implies that this is the documentary side of the film. But what if Nicolás Pereda made it seem like a documentary in the second half to throw us off, when in fact it's the fiction part? It's things like this that really capture my attention from start to finish and everything about Greatest Hits is fantastic. I wouldn't necessarily call Greatest Hits contemplative cinema, but it is sure as hell thought-provoking and should be seen by anybody who was blown away by Close-Up, as it gives the same feeling while watching that film.

Lencho of the Apes2.0

Mumblecore. Feels improvised. Meant nothing to me. Gabino Rodriguez is easily the most unattractive actor I've ever seen in movies; it doesn't seem to affect his career or nothing, but watching this really soured me on life.