It is an intense and interior drama with which Ariel Rotter He decided to return to filmmaking after “The Incident Light.”
Valeria (Julieta Zylberberg) and Javier (Alfonso Tort) are a couple that has been dealing, struggling with getting pregnant, unsuccessfully. But it seems that frustration will not prevail in either of them.
Contrary to what many could have predicted, the central character is not that of Julieta Zylberberg – the woman who has been struggling for six years trying to get pregnant – but that of her partner, who is played with great nuance, ambiguity and integrity by Alfonso Tort.
The thing is that Javier is the one who the camera follows the most. He does it in the publishing house where he works, and to which a directive “from above” (Susana Pampín) arrived and who apparently will dedicate herself to eliminating the company’s employees. They never finish the house he and Valeria plan to move into – he is there more than she – or when he goes to live with her father (Norman Briski).
Why are you moving? A co-worker tells him that she is pregnant, and the dates indicate that it was a meeting they had at a company meeting in Mendoza. Camila clarifies that she wants to have him, and that she is not asking him for anything, any type of commitment. The news is a bucket of cold water for Javier, and they don’t want to imagine what it will be like for Valeria when he tells her.
The film, thus, zigzags between the couple’s meetings once they separated and Javier’s problems in his job and with his father.
Helpless: this is Javier, who takes responsibility for his mistake, and is as aware of it – remember that the unwanted pregnancy was in parallel with the attempts to have a child with Valeria – and that, most likely, Valeria does not want never see him again.
And he can’t believe it, he can’t think of not being with his wife. They’ve been through so much, and he’s about to lose it all.
With all the power of its cast
Rotter used a cast of secondary performers – to those mentioned, we add Alejandra Flechner and Horacio Acosta, as Valeria’s parents, or Verónica Hassan as one of Javier’s co-workers.
It is by virtue of everyone’s interpretations that A Blue Bird ends up taking flight. Javier’s relationships with Valeria and with his father are markedly different, but in both it is felt that there was a lot of shared pain.
A good film, in co-production with Uruguay, which reaches the Argentine cinema after passing through the Biarritz Festival, where it won the awards for best leading actor for Tort and the Jury Prize.
Drama. Argentina / Uruguay, 2023. 97′, SAM 13. Of: Ariel Rotter. Con: Alfonso Tort, Juliet Zylberberg, Norman Briski, Susanna Pampin, Alexandra Flechner, Romina Paula, Eugenia Guerty, Walter Jakob, Maria Villar, Veronica Hassan, Nestor Guzzini. Salas: Cinemark Palermo. Cinépolis Recoleta, Hoyts Unicenter and Quilmes, Showcase Belgrano and Norcenter.