DERECHO DE FAMILIA (FAMILY LAW)

Argentina, 2006, 102 minutes, Colour.
Daniel Hendler, Julieta Diaz, Arturo Goetz, Damien Dreizik.
Directed by Daniel Burman.

This is a very positive film indeed, very enjoyable, very entertaining.

Daniel Burman brings Argentinian society to life – with a special angle since his family is Jewish and migrated to Argentina at the end of World War II. Family Law is somewhat autobiographical – and the hero’s little boy is played, charmingly and naturalistically, by Burman’s own son.

Family Law sounds far too legal and cold a title for this film. It opens with the central figure, a fairly buttoned-up type (literally since he even wears his suit and tie to bed sometimes) who lectures, quite interestingly in law and justice at the university. He is talking, not about himself, but his father’s daily routine in life and in his legal practice. He is in admiration of his father – and the audience grows in sharing this admiration. His father is a good man.

The hero himself is not such a bad man either, but overshadowed in his own mind and behaviour by this father. He marries, has a little boy, continues his work but fails to understand so much of his father’s life and attitudes, despite his father’s encouraging him to do so, until it is too late. Daniel Hendler won a Silver Bear in Berlin for Burman’s previous film. He is completely credible here as is Arturo Goetz as the father.

Burman is showing three generations of a family, relationships between fathers and sons. There are tensions and misunderstandings but also love and hope.

1.Entertaining Argentinian film? The Argentinian tradition, Latin America, the Jewish tradition in Argentina?

2.The title, audiences expecting a film about court cases, the film being about family, love and support? The true family law?

3.The Buenos Aires setting, the city itself, the cityscapes, the homes, offices, the streets? The musical score?

4.Perelman and his voice-over, his commentary about his father, the facts of his routine, the fifteen years? Perelman and his comments, his appreciation of his father as a good man, the differences between himself and his father, Perelman’s self-awareness and lack of self-awareness? His father as an enigma, a different kind of affection and love?

5.The father’s routine: his age, the same routine for fifteen years, his reliance on Norita as his assistant and giving him all the information? Waking, walking, the breakfast, the exact timetable, to the office, avoiding the queues, his seeing his clients in the office, at the bar for those who found offices difficult, his adaptation to every client that he met, knowing all about them, birthdays, football support? A genial and good man at the service of others?

6.Perelman and his contrast with himself, his not having an office with his father, his lectures? The nature of his lectures, the emphasis on justice? The student interrupting and denouncing him about ecology and his failing students? Perelman’s comments about the women eager in the morning and the bearded would-be dropouts in the evening? His discussing the nature of testimony and eyewitness? His focus on Sandra, his talking about his plan to marry her? Her dropping out? Her work with the Pilates system, his going for sessions, his awkwardness, hanging upside down, her helping him? The difficulty of her case, the copyright, his father helping him, winning the case? Marrying Sandra, the birth of Gaston? The details of their daily life, the effect on him?

7.Sandra and her work, her clients, the Pilates method? Her parenting? The expedition to Peru? Her love? The secrets?

8.Perelman and his life, his lectures? The final interruption and his being praised for teaching justice and being given the bouquet (and his giving it to Norita)? At home, sleeping in his suit? His being meticulous, his arm’s length and the ties and testing them? Tidy? The issue of the Swiss school? The birthday party, the entertainers, his having to be a clown? Going to the school meetings, the other parents, preparing for the concert? The swimming with the fathers and the children? The discussions with his father about Gaston, about his not liking soccer, about his being an artist? The intimate scenes with his son, the nature of true affection between father and son? The naturalness of the performances? His father, admiration for him, memories of the past, the lack of obvious affection? Yet his father reaching out to him, smiling, wanting to spend the day with him, taking him on the tour of the clients, meeting them – the radio announcer that he helped (and his presence at the funeral)? Perelman seeing his father with Norita? Knowing something was different, not knowing that his father was ill and about to die?

9.His being alone, playing with Gaston, the lights going out, Norita coming, the sad news? The funeral? The many tributes?

10.The effect of his father’s life on him? A pattern to model himself on?

11.The film’s themes of family love, values? An optimistic film? Not only feelgood but an encouragement to be good?