Empty Nest shows dreams are worthwhile at San Sebastian
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Daniel Burman is a director who over the years has spoiled his public, giving audiences a series of memorable film moments. He returns to the San Sebastian Film Festival after several years and a Silver Bear under his belt (for Lost Embrace [trailer]), with Empty Nest, a film about dreams, a universe normally associated with childhood.
Burman instead looks at a 50-year-old couple grappling with the empty nest syndrome after their children leave home.
Martha (Cecilia Roth) reacts following the aspirations of her youth and enrols in university. Leonardo (Oscar Martínez), a successful playwright, undertakes a dreamlike journey towards his forbidden desires, playing out some of them. Against a psychoanalytical backdrop typical to Argentinean comedy, Burman offers a drama on life after 50 that invokes bitter smiles.
A creative co-production between Argentina and Spain, the film was financed by INCAA (Argentina), ICAA (Spain) and the Ibermedia Programme. Production agencies BD Cine and Wanda handed over international sales to Bavaria, strong off the worldwide commercial success of the director’s previous titles.
Empty Nest may not the Argentinean director’s best artistic endeavour, but it certainly marks an important step in Burman’s visual and psychological experimentation, begun in 1997 with A Crysanthemum Bursts in Cincoesquinas, selected in the Panorama section of the Berlinale.
Carlo d'Ursi cineuropa.org