At the weekend our local cinema ran a short season of Argentinean films. We managed to get to a couple of them.

La Cámara Oscura (The Camera Obscura -2009) is a film by Maria Victoria Menis based on a short story by Argentinean writer Angélica Gorodischer, set in the last 18th and early 19th century ago among Jewish immigrants escaping the pogroms in Europe.

Gertrudis, the principal character, is a woman who has almost disappeared from her own life. Largely unspeaking, her inner life is conveyed to us in animated sequences, and by reflection in her appreciation of the beauty of the countryside, her flower garden, her daughters’ dresses, the food she prepares, and her table settings. Her son only realizes she is gone because the table from the night before has not been cleared.

The catalyst for change is a travelling photographer, invited over by her husband to take photographs of the family. We know she will try to disappear from the photographs, but the attention and interest of the photographer draws her out and, at the end, away from this life.

This is a film of images rather than plot or character. In fact, the filmmaking renders this stultifying existence beautiful, but you know it looks better than it lives. But you wonder about the connection, and how successful her liberation will really be.

In contrast El Hijo de la Novia (The Son of the Bride – 2001) directed by Juan José Campanella is conventional storytelling through film. The principal character, Rafael Belvedere is 42 and stressed. He runs a restaurant, unable to find competent staff and let down by suppliers, but started by his parents so he doesn’t feel able to sell up. He is constantly on the phone and cannot find time for his daughter, who lives with his ex-wife, or his girlfriend. His mother has Alzheimer’s but he hasn’t found time to visit, and his father has come up with an unrealistic plan to marry his mother in church as a final present to her.

In fact, his situation is not so bad, though he cannot see it. He lives in a stylish apartment; the restaurant seems to be full and there is a buyer at the door; his girlfriend is patient and his daughter wants to see him. The hinge around which the film swings is his heart attack: the time in ICU giving him the opportunity to re-evaluate his life.

The second half of the film works its way through to a resolution. Rafael sells his parent’s restaurant, and then buys his own restaurant opposite. He eventually finds the right words to say to his girlfriend. The church refuses to marry his parents, despite all his protests, so he organizes a friend to play the part of a priest in a fake ceremony. The film ends where comedies traditionally end, at the wedding and the subsequent wedding party.

The strength of the film is that the formal structure is balanced ironically with the material of the story told; the deceptive nature of the wedding ceremony, which has been organised too late, and his mother’s limited understanding of events. One cycle is closing, one that cannot be entirely resolved, but the new cycle is already underway.