The movie “Causalidad” (2021)

A kind-of random selection with a coincidental personal connection.

Not from the movie, but fits the vibe. Photo by Nickolas Nikolic on Unsplash

The Argentinian movie “Causalidad” (2021) showed up on my suggestions page with its English title: “Causality”. This has absolutely nothing at all to do with my first (self-)published story, called “Causality”, but the shared name is the reason I paid attention. It seemed like synchronicity.

The description is unexceptional:

“Causality” tells the story of Claudia, who shows up at a bar to meet Luis, a doctor who contacted her through a dating app. Claudia doesn’t suspect what fate has in store for her. A kidnapping that ends with an inevitable and unpredictable death. A suspense story with surprising twists until the last second, narrated in a sequence shot without cuts.

The most interesting aspect was the idea of a single sequence shot without cuts. The movie is almost two hours long. How would they manage that?

SIDEBAR

On a disappointing linguistic note, I have to confess that I watched the dubbed version. Don’t get me wrong, I generally like subtitles, but this time I just didn’t feel up to it. The last thing I watched in Spanish (Paraiso) had such quick dialogue, I had trouble keeping up with the subtitles. Maybe my mind is slipping? Unless it is just my eyesight.

I think I would have enjoyed the original Spanish dialogue better. But maybe I would have missed THE CLUE.

END OF SIDEBAR

Perhaps because of the distractingly poor quality of the dubbed voices, or the eclectic but banal initial setting, I didn’t have much hope at the beginning.

A homeless man causes a scene, and Claudia Marino (Juana Viale) is distracted from her drink just long enough for a man behind the camera to pour something into it. It’s already clear where that plot point is going, and although there are a few minutes of back and forth with will she/won’t she drink from the glass, it’s hardly spoilery for me to tell you that she does. I mean, if you’d already read the description above, like me, you’d be expecting her to drink it.

But then it does get surprising.

And engrossing.

And it was about this time that I really started to notice the length of the uninterrupted scene, the continuous hand-held motion of the camera obscuring key things, to maintain the suspense, but revealing others that aren’t immediately relevant. Sometimes the camera motion is a bit much, a bit queasy-making, and sometimes you can tell that the actor is having to make room for the cameraman while trying not to seem to be doing that.

The Door

This was a big issue for me. The “hook” was the idea of an uninterrupted “single-cut” scene (as much as the name), so when the camera passed through a locked door, it irritated me. The camera couldn’t actually pass through the door, so it wasn’t actually a single cut. It was just made to look like a single cut.

On the other hand, it was well done, and I found myself impressed by it. The smoothness of the transition, considering that this was essentially two shots from a hand-held camera that went together well enough to appear pretty seamless. So, false advertizing? Or am I simply not well-versed enough in what “uninterrupted single cut” does or doesn’t mean?

The MC

The main protagonist is actually head nurse Romina Marín (Laura Novoa) who knows something is not right. Withstanding mansplaining, bullying, and the threat of physical violence, she forges on through the roadblocks of an institution built of incompetence and indifference, hardly an infomercial for Argentinian healthcare. Still, this was filmed in 2020, so there is that too.

The Vibe

Some movies are slick or shiny. This isn’t one of them. The lighting is drab and ordinary. The acting is sometimes awkward or even rocky. The shots aren’t timed perfectly, or set up just right, or framed to a golden ratio, but this all conspires to give a sense of authenticity, of realism, or perhaps of unrehearsedness? No, that’s not fair. The rawness is a good thing. It’s a kind of compelling spontaneity with rough edges that suggest the imperfections of life.

The Verdict

I know very little about Argentina or Argentinian actors. A couple of the stars seem to be quite well-known — in Argentina. So any of that kind of nuance is lost on me. But I’ve found, over the years, that the films I know nothing at all about beforehand are the ones I end up enjoying the most. Trailers give too much away. Recognizing the actors from a previous body of work gives clues about casting decisions, whether people are being type cast or not. I’d avoid seeing the description at all, if I could! But that usually doesn’t happen.

With no expectations, either good or bad, we just let a movie wash over us. For me, it is the best way to experience any movie. And this particular movie? The single cut premise (door notwithstanding) delivers an immersive dance through a tiny part of Argentina, and it is well worth the journey.

Highly recommended.

Thanks for reading!

Here’s that short story of mine I mentioned earlier: