Shakespeare-Inspired “Isabella”
Film led by out gay Argentine director Matias Piñeiro
BY STEVE ERICKSON
“Isabella” is the most
mysterious entry in
gay Argentine director
Matias Piñeiro’s
series of Shakespeare-inspired
fi lms. Its images indulge in a play
of color and light. The fi lm initially
seems gentle and relaxed, but its
confl icts come closer to the surface.
It begins and ends with a fi lmwithin
a-fi lm, showing a woman
walking to the end of pier to throw
12 stones into the water. This ritual
must be done when the light has
turned a pale purple, something
beautifully conveyed by Fernando
Lockett’s cinematography. Each
stone represents a doubt needing
to be cast away.
“Isabella” hints at a reality nastier
than what it actually shows.
Mariel (Maria Villar) is an actor introduced
at an audition for the role
of Isabella in Shakespeare’s “Measure
for Measure.” Pregnant at the
time, she has rehearsed lines with
Lucinda (Agustina Muñoz), who
turned down this part. Especially
with a baby on the way, Mariel
needs work as an actor to make
ends meet. Rejected for “Measure
for Measure,” she has to borrow
money from her brother, who happens
to be its director. Lucinda is
sleeping with him. Long scenes of
the two women relaxing in the hills
outside the city of Cordoba break
up the fi lm’s narrative.
“Isabella” uses images of an installation
created by Mariel and her
friend Sol as punctuation. At fi rst,
it looks like an Abstract Expressionist
painting. Repetition eventually
makes it obvious that the
layers of color are objects in a real
space. It’s actually quite elaborate,
with wooden boards cut out and illuminated
by LED lights. Honestly,
I was baffl ed by this subplot, which
is expressed almost entirely in images,
and didn’t fully understand
until I read other reviews of “Isabela.”
But it feels of a piece with a
fi lm that also returns to the image
of a rainbow’s worth of Post-It notes
being shuffl ed and placed on the
fl oor. Piñeiro captures the natural
Isaac Calpito at his Torch’D store in Wainscott.
beauty of Cordoba well, fi lming its
landscapes in long shot. The theater
rehearsals take place on a set,
bare but for a chair, that feels oddly
unreal, especially because Lucinda
interacts with an unseen director
who stands behind a mirror. Mariel’s
installation rhymes visually
with this space.
The mood of “Isabella” is jarred
by the fact that its time frame is so
unclear. Piñeiro jumps from present
to future without the usual visual
cues. Important events pass by. For
example, Mariel says, in a voice-over,
that she missed seeing Luciana in
the premiere of “Measure for Measure”
because she was asleep at the
time. Mariel gives up her desire to act
to become a visual artist, but we see
her work without much explanation.
Piñeiro’s approach to Shakespeare
has always offered refl ections
of the plays to which his fi lms
refer, set in a bohemian collegiate
milieu. While Villar and Muñoz
are regulars in his casts, working
with him for more than a decade,
they’re noticeably older this time
around. “Isabella” describes situations
and dilemmas of early middle
age: a 38-year-old woman giving
birth without the ability to support
himself, which leads to a crisis
about whether or not she should go
on acting. I’ve laid the fi lm’s confl
ict out in a blunter, more linear
fashion than it does.
The mysteries of “Isabella” are
captivating, but fi guring out what
they add up to is diffi cult. While
Piñeiro says he will make two
more fi lms in his Shakespearean
series, “Isabella” plays like the end
of a certain direction in his work.
It describes disillusionment and
a friendship concealing envy and
professional rivalry rather than
FILM
BARBARA LASSEN
youthful vibrancy, yet “Isabella”
conceals that fact under a gorgeous
use of color. When its themes are
recognizable, they’re visualized in
a manner that pushes them to the
side, suggesting that something
else is really going on. Playing with
color ultimately seems more important
to the fi lm than drama. Hypnotically
enigmatic, “Isabella” suggests
a new direction for Piñeiro’s
fi lms without quite fulfi lling it.
ISABELLA | Directed by Matias
Piñeiro | The Cinema Guild |
In Spanish with English subtitles |
Opens Aug. 27th at Film at Lincoln
Center
GayCityNews.com | AUGUST 26 - SEPTEMBER 8, 2021 29
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