LAKE TAHOE
Mexico, 2008, 81 minutes, Colour.
Diego Catano, Hector Herera, Daniela Valentine, Juan Carlos Lara II.
Directed by Fernando Eimbcke.
The setting is not Lake Tahoe – rather, Tahoe is a distant memory, or lost memory for Juan, who lives in a Mexican coastal town. We spend a day with him, realising that he has just lost his father. His mother has secluded herself and he is meant to keep an eye on his little brother.
While Lake Tahoe is a drama, it is more like a cinema poem, with its long, fixed camera shorts, where characters walk in an out, a film for reflection rather than any adrenalin rush. We get to know something of the town and its streets as well as some of its characters. Juan's car breaks down at the opening so he walks to a garage, then to a shop where he meets a single mother who works there and later wants him to baby sit for her, then to find David who can supply the broken part and fix the car. Juan also takes an old man's dog for a walk and loses it. Later they go in search of it. David is in no hurry and takes Juan to breakfast with his bible-quoting mother. He also loves martial arts and invites Juan to come to see Enter the Dragon with him... and, without spoiling the plot, that is most of the action.
However, if you allow it (and not everyone has a contemplative frustration tolerance level), Lake Tahoe rather grows on you. You feel you have visited the town, met the people and got to know Juan and the others a little.
1.The experimental nature of the film? Storytelling? Character portrayal? Themes?
2.The visual style: the single shot, the medium and long shots compared with close-ups? The length of the shots? Inviting audience contemplation? The framing of the scenes in the town, the countryside, the sky? The characters within the frames? Walking in and out, through the frames? The effect of this kind of photography and accumulation of images? The importance of the fadeouts – and their length, pauses for audiences to contemplate? Yet the sound effects continuing through the blackness? The cumulative effect of this experimental visual style?
3.The title, the sticker on the car, the memories of the visit to Lake Tahoe, in Juan’s memory? Joachin and his remembering – and Juan telling him he was never there? Lake Tahoe as a symbolic place, different from the town, a destination for a different kind of life?
4.The plot over twenty-four hours or more? In Juan’s life? Wandering the town? Driving, the crash, deliberate or not? Audiences puzzled about his attitude? His visiting home, the phone calls? The audience finally discovering that Juan’s father had died, his inability to cope, his grief, his mother and her withdrawal into the bathroom, not wanting to speak to anyone, Joachin and his age, in the tent in the yard, in the cupboard? Following Juan?
5.The film as a non-road movie? Within the town, a journey, but with the car broken down?
6.Juan, his age, background? His wandering the town, looking for a part? The garages? The advice from the manager? Going to the shop, Lucia and her talk? Waiting for David? The encounter with David, friendship, talking, breakfast – and his walking out after David’s mother says Grace and tries to convert him with the reading from Scripture? David inviting him to the film? His reluctance to go? Lucia inviting him to look after the bay after he had quieted it? His going home, the discussions with Joachin, trying to speak to his mother? The phone calls and condolences? His exasperation, saying his father wasn’t there, yelling that he was dead? The car, the part, the different part? David and the stealing of the part, his carefree attitude? Driving off? Juan’s decision to go to the film – and the audience hearing only the sounds, the black fadeout? Being with David, David and his talking English, the kung-fu moves, wanting emotion – and Juan getting the baseball bat and hitting the car? His going to Lucia, offering to mind the baby, her approach, his response? His returning back home? Recovering his sense of reality? The discussions with the old man, the dog, taking the dog for a run, the dog running away, taking the old man in the car, their seeing the family with the dog, Juan offering to get it, the old man just driving on? The cumulative effect of this experience on Juan?
7.David, his carefree attitude, martial arts, the book, the Shaolin teachers, giving the book to Juan? Breakfast, his religious mother? His casual turning up, the wrong part? Stealing the part, fixing the car, going to the film, his reactions afterwards?
8.Lucia, single mother, her dress, chewing gum, smoking? The baby, Juan holding it and it going to sleep? Her talk about the town, listening to the music, dancing? Wanting to go to the concert? Her trying to persuade Juan, accepting that he couldn’t do it, her dressing to go out, the approach to Juan?
9.David’s mother, the breakfast, the Grace, the Scripture reading?
10.Don Heber, the old man, his suspicions of Juan, forcing him to sit in the chair, interrogating him? The dog? Accepting his story, helping him out? Juan’s return to him, taking the dog, the run? Don Heber accepting the loss of his dog?
11.Joaquin, his age, in the tent, not understanding the grief, the condolences? In the cupboard, breaking wind, Juan’s reaction? His reliance on his brother? The mother and her inability to cope with the grief?
12.The overall impact of the film – as narrative, character, portrait of a town, experimental film?
