SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL | SFJFF 2010

In a witty and sophisticated farce, middle-aged playwright Leonardo Vindel (the marvelous Oscar Martínez) descends into a world where fantasy and reality interlace seamlessly. Reality would be his advancing age, his midriff bulge, the departure of his grown-up children, and the unraveling of his marriage to the still-gorgeous and sexy Martha (Pedro Almodóvar star Cecilia Roth). Fantasy is his May-December affair with a beautiful young dental assistant, and his intimate conversations with a secret buddy who not only listens sympathetically to his kvetching but follows him to the shores of the Dead Sea to visit his daughter and machine-gun-toting Israeli son-in-law. This is a confrontation with a reality far different from his comfortable life back home. One of Argentina’s leading directors, Daniel Burman takes a new approach to the intertwined issues of aging and identity following his earlier trilogy of films on Jewish life in Buenos Aires, Waiting for the Messiah (SFJFF 2001), Lost Embrace, and Family Law. In Empty Nest, he plays with film’s ability to alter time and reveal the unconscious. His characters struggle to deny the passage of time, but their rich inner lives bring them to the edge of understanding and acceptance. Will they learn in time?
—Alan Snitow

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