Historias extraordinarias

Director: Mariano Llinás

2008 / 244min / DCP

Like Pasolini, Llinás (La Flor) is an innovator who, paradoxically, looks for inspiration in the past: in this case, the epic tradition of 19th-century literature, which Historias extraordinarias argues—and, in its very existence, proves—could be achieved in independent cinema. Comprised of three distinct narratives, it begins with the tale of a traveling bureaucrat, played by Llinás himself, and his involvement with a mysterious briefcase; ends with a journey down a forgotten river; and in-between sets off down a number of tributary tangents, each no less inspired than these “central” stories. “A contagiously playful and thrillingly inventive work… Compulsively watchable.”—The New York Times. Screens with two intermissions.