From the very beginning, I had a good feeling about the film. Hugo, young man and Momo, a young woman meet at a bus station at night. He is on his way to the funeral of his father. He carries always a cactus with him which he named “Adolfo”, the only thing his father has left to him.
Places of departure or arrival like airports, railway stations of in this film an almost abandoned bus station are always good starting points in cinema. Hugo misses his last bus and has to spend the whole night with this strange woman.
Of course, the film is scripted, planned and performed, the dialogues probably as carefully scripted like in Hans Weingartners masterpiece 303. But what it felt like the film seems to arise from this point almost by itself. I felt it like an unexpected dream. Almost entirely filmed at night, the artificial lights of a party, a pub or a food stall turn the sad environment into a magic landscape, a film like made for the darkness of a film theatre (an artificial night) where only the screen is visible. I was lucky enough to have watched the film in one of the few last great film theatres in my city. Strangely when a film motivates my attention, one part of me feels like dreaming while the other part of me is wide awake. One can call it the “Eyes Wide Shut”-effect. It is one of the rare experiences when I almost feel like the artificial chemical, mechanical or in this film digital memory is overtaken by my own biological one.
At the beginning, Hugo and Momo are as anonymous like us, the spectators in a film theatre. They carry their burdens of life with them like we do. She has to deal with her drug addiction, he with his mourning. And like in a strange dream we can sense this strange homelessness of the characters.Despite the fact some other characters appear for a short time , the film is mostly a piece about two persons who met by accident at night. And this night where every light is artificial creates a very cinematic zone. Even though, seemingly not much happens, the film attracts attention to every detail. Sometimes he things are what they are and sometimes they become what they evoke.
The “Boy meets Girl”-element does not really turn into an romance but it offers romance as a possible option. In this sense the film is a close relative of Aparna Sens masterpiece Mr. And Mrs. Iyer or Hans Weingartners wonderful Road Movie 303. And like all good films, Adolfo tells not only about things nwe see or which are outspoken but as well about things we do not see.
We neither learn very much about their stories but piece by piece we got an idea about the complexity of two human lives. It is one of those quite compact films (only 69 minutes) which will expand itself in my memory to an eternity. The masterful dialogues rather evoke our imagination than explaining everything. Adolfo seems to be closer to a music piece or a song. A quite eventless plot unfolds to a night piece of somnambulistic beauty. One feels the fleetingness of this moments of lights and movement which will vanish when the day breaks.
The Night, Hugo and Momo are drifting through appears as well as a nice image for cinema itself. One can not escape the burdens, the fear and the losses of life but we can at least imagine that it is possible to be happier than we are.
Some films I can relate too, understand them and appreciate them, others seem to have discovered me because they are given to me as an unexpected gift.
The intensity of a dream is most evident in moments like when Hugo and Momo hug each other. It is quite a heartbreaking contrast between the two persons who get a bit closer each other and the mercilessness of the film print which reaches its last images. Sometimes in a film a relative simple gesture can have a vehemence like a natural spectacle, an effect only the big screen can offer.
Maybe the film itself is a little bit like Adolfo the cactus. A cactus is a living being which can survive under hostile conditions. As cinema itself exists and survives now under very tough conditions, we need such cinematic jewels like Adolfo by Sofia Auza to imagine that a future of the endangered art of cinema is still possible.
Rüdiger Tomczak
Screenings:
Tue, 21.2, 12.45 Zoo-Palast 2
Sat, 25.2, 20.00 Urania
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