La Antena

DVD review (region 2)
Directed by Esteban Sapir
Starring Valeria Bertuccelli, Alejandro Urdapilleta, Julieta Cardinali
Release date Out now

There exists a silent city in which the inhabitants' voices have been stolen. As part of a plan to also steal people’s minds, the evil Mr. TV kidnaps a mysterious singer known as The Voice. Only a TV repairman and his family, along with the blind son of the singer, can save the city….

A film of almost staggering beauty, La Antena (‘The Aerial’) is Esteban Sapir’s homage to the glorious heyday of silent fantasy cinema.

The setting is an oppressive silent city in which a media mogul keeps the population under control with numbing TV shows and TV dinners. But despite the dystopian themes, Sapir is less interested in fashioning a scathing social commentary than celebrating the joy and wonder of cinema. The emphasis is very much placed on visual storytelling, and whether it’s a balloon man floating across the snow-lashed skyline or the mysterious hooded character 'The Voice' dancing on stage, every gorgeous frame is a work of art. Even the on-screen text (in place of speech) is dazzling, with ‘rat-a-tats’ erupting across screen as tommy guns fire, and words floating from mouths and megaphones.

Esteban draws from a vast array of silent sources – the dystopian city from Metropolis; the off-kilter expressionism of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari; the playful fantasy of Georges Méliès; the montage experiments of Eisenstein. There are also several disturbing surreal touches, such as Mr. TV’s tiny sack-faced henchman and a doctor with a television in front of his face, that recall David Lynch’s Eraserhead. Yet Sapir takes all of these influences and manages to fashion something new and utterly captivating. Truly astonishing. Matt McAllister