With a handsome protagonist providing know-it-all narration from the opening frame, “Lost Embrace” sets up the audience for a flippant comedy of twenty-something angst, Argentine style.
But beneath all the cleverness and tossed-off one-liners, “Lost Embrace” is a poignant, generous story of a young Jewish man coming to terms with his family and himself.
The film reveals its deeper concerns through a time-honored twist: While the hero appears to know all there is to know about everybody in his circle, he turns out to be completely in the dark.
“Lost Embrace,” which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival and premiered locally at the Latino Film Festival, screens March 7 in the 10th annual Contra Costa International Jewish Film Festival.
Director Daniel Burman sets his Spanish-language film in a down-market Buenos Aires mall whose tenants include a radio repair store, beauty parlor and lingerie shop.
You’ll find the rakish Ariel Marakoff (Daniel Hendler, who was named Best Actor at Berlin) selling bras and panties, since his mother (Adriana Aizemberg) owns the lingerie store. You could call Elias’ Creations the family business. It still bears the name of Ariel’s father — who skedaddled to Israel on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, when Ariel was just an infant.
The modern Jewish state is a distant abstraction to Ariel, but then so is the Old Country. His dotty Polish grandmother survived the Holocaust, but the self-centered Ariel has never expressed any interest in her life.
Even now, when he needs her documents to prove his European ancestry to obtain a passport and travel abroad, Ariel isn’t curious. He is, however, deeply frustrated.
Although Ariel’s knowledge of Jewish ritual and history is miniscule, paradoxically his life is somehow defined by the baggage — and reduced expectations — that he’s inherited.
Burman utilizes handheld camerawork and quick cuts to reflect Ariel’s restlessness and impatience. They help give “Lost Embrace” its frenetic charm.
But the approach grows wearisome, especially when it seems to camouflage a lack of action and incident. Indeed, the film works so hard to tease and divert the audience that for the longest time we’re not sure what the movie is about and where it’s going.
Gradually, Ariel’s need to find out more about his father emerges as the focus. The real question, though, is whether Ariel will accept the truth about his dad — and other people.
It’s called maturity, and it’s beautifully expressed in a scene where Ariel listens to his grandmother for perhaps the first time. When she breaks into an exquisite rendition of a Yiddish song, Ariel’s acceptance of his Jewish heritage and identity is complete.
“Lost Embrace” screens at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 7, at the CinéArts at Pleasant Hill as part of the 10th annual Contra Costa Jewish International Film Festival. Tickets: $8 in advance at www.jfedd.org or the Contra Costa JCC, or $9 at the door.