Local loan shark Clemente is suddenly strapped with a baby in OCTUBRE (courtesy New Yorker Films)
OCTUBRE (Daniel Vega & Diego Vega, 2010)
92YTribeca
200 Hudson St.
Saturday, January 21, $12, 6:30
212-415-5500
www.newyorkerfilms.info
www.92y.org
Winner of the Jury Prize of the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, Octubre is a deadpan black comedy about loneliness and, ultimately, a different kind of family. In Daniel and Diego Vega’s first feature, Bruno Odar stars as Clemente, a low-key money lender in Lima, Peru, who comes home one day to his stark apartment to find a baby left in a back room. Figuring out it must be his by one of the prostitutes he frequents, he goes in search of the woman, known as la Cajamarquina, who does not want to be found. After the authorities strongly suggest that he keep the baby, Clemente hires the deeply religious Sofia (Gabriela Velásquez) to help take care of the child. The events unfold during the Purple Month, October, when Lima celebrates El Señor de los Milagros (the Lord of the Miracles), worshiping a seventeenth-century image of Christ that many believe is responsible for myriad miracles. Citing Robert Bresson, Jim Jarmusch, and Aki Kaurismäki as direct influences, the brothers Vega have made a slow-paced little gem, a curious tale with strange characters centered around the idea of money — but not greed. Clemente, the son of a respected pawnbroker, lends out cash to locals who tend to dictate the terms to him. When one man pays him back with a questionable bill, Clemente spends the rest of the film trying to get rid of it, but everyone else seems to be a lot smarter than he is when it comes to money. Sofia sells homemade nougat, a Purple Month tradition, and plays the numbers with Don Fico (Carlos Gassols), hoping for a small break in her spinsterish life. The only relationships that Clemente and Sofia have with other people involve money, either lending it, borrowing it, gambling it, or, in Clemente’s case, spending it to have sex. But the surprise baby has the potential to change both of their drab, boring lives. Octubre is a promising debut from the Vegas, who, along with cinematographer Fergan Chávez-Ferrer, display a smart sense of subtle visual and narrative style in telling this offbeat story. Octubre is screening January 21 at 92YTribeca as Best Feature Film at the Cinema Tropical Festival, which also includes Michael Rowe’s Camera d’Or winner Leap Year (Año Bisiesto), Patricio Guzmán’s stunning Nostalgia for the Light, and Tatiana Huezo’s The Tiniest Place (El Lugar Más Pequeño).