Whisky

MOVIE #1,631 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 05.13.24 • VOLUME LXIV • I love when the Gods of TRUE RANDOM give me an international picture because I'm always looking to break free of my comfort zone. This entry is far away as it gets (on paper), but it turned out to be right up my alley (in practice): a meditative story about estranged brothers who reunite after their mother passes away. It’s the first Uruguayan film I’ve logged on this site. The younger one, Herman, has moved away from the family sock factory in Uruguay, to Brazil where he has made a family and founded a more successful sock company. The elder brother, Jacobo, stayed to care for their ailing matriarch as he trudges through the monotony of managing the old shop.

The film — directed by the duo of Juan Pablo Rebella & Pablo Stoll, whose only other credit is a 2001 movie called 25 Watts (the latter went on to make several more pictures solo, while the former took his own shortly after this was released) — takes its time setting up the tedium of this day-to-day, as we meet Jacobo’s longtime employee, Marta, who handles almost everything at the small factory.

In an effort to show his brother that he has something in his life, Jacobo convinces her to pose as his wife during his brother's stay. It's not a parade of hijinks but there's nonetheless a droll humor running through the proceedings. The three leads are wonderful as is the attention to detail in this otherwise sparse plotline. You feel all the unseen pain and complicated emotions behind these unremarkable lives. Easily the biggest outlier I've ever watched via the wasteland of Tubi. I highly recommend it.

---

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,630 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,632 ⫸

---

Whisky is a Uruguayan tragicomedy film directed by Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll and released in 2004. The film stars Andrés Pazos, Mirella Pascual, Jorge Bolani, Ana Katz, and Daniel Hendler. It has sparse dialogue and the three principal actors play very rigid roles depicting little emotion. It was premiered at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Un Certain Regard and FIPRESCI Awards. It was Rebella's last film as he died in 2006, two years after the release of the film. It was released on May 19, 2004.