Perpetual Motion

Lencho of the Apes3.0

Art-school non-com, even drier than the deadpannest early-mid Jarmusches. Mom, and her slack motherfucker son with his little moving van business and family dysfunction and... stuff like that. It's all 100% character-driven, and the performances are strong enough to carry the whole movie. A structuring quirk that could escape you on first viewing: that scene at the beginning with the old woman pottering around in her walker and singing to herself isn't a non sequitur. You'll forget about that character once the movie gets going, but she reappears in an important way very near to the end.

Peter Zingg3.5

Many have commented on the debt to Pedro Costa that Pereda owes. No matter. While one could comment on the bleakness and repetitiveness of Perpetuum Mobile (well, the title is apt, isn't it?), I found some unique and interesting things here:1. Our slacker brute-hero Gabino (no diploma, doesn't want to get dressed in the morning or clean the dishes) is actually the one who is hard working and honest (to the point of being taken advantage of by everyone except his mom and his mover buddy). The film does not argue against the pain of poverty; in fact if you put yourself in Gabino's shoes, you wouldn't want to work in the "oficina" or have all those possessions that have to be constantly moved around town.2. Though outwardly "slow" and perhaps not conventionally handsome, Gabino has a relationship with a pretty, unnamed girlfriend of sorts who waits patiently for him. Although she's a little pissed off at him, she has a smile for him which is more than you can say for all the other couples in the film who are breaking up and moving out. The Rashomon windshield-reflection loop when Gabino picks her up and drops her off two times is pretty magical as well as being quite charming in an non-conventional way.3. The whole thing is a pure slice of Mexico, and traces a typical Mexican family's history in reverse from the family's current urban survival strategies in the D.F. back to its campesino origins in the touching final scene in the mountains. I particularly liked the fact that we didn't get the pictures of megalopolitan Mexico City, only the moving truck parked on a side street and the windshield reflections of a few trips in Gabino's truck. I'd love to see some New York, Miami, San Francisco or L.A. movies that don't need to advertise their location in the usual loud manner.I wish Netflix had the other two films in the Gabino trilogy...

emilia3.5

perdón matias estaba buena la peli pero tenia una junta 💔💔 estoy igual como el miguel