"If you fuck up my hair, then I'll blow off your toes," Roberto tells his scissors-wielding family barber wife, and though it may not sound like Terms of Endearment to you or I, it's clear from the studied pose of the pair that the line is delivered for the camera for fun. More often, however, in Naomi Uman's demonstratively low-tech, black and white experimental documentary short (the film was hand processed and hung to dry on a clothesline), the three generations of a rural Mexican family in Aquascalientes are shown working with the prime economical unit: cows. We see cows being roped, branded, suckled by calves, milked by humans, and curds being endlessly squeezed to make cheese (for which the family earns 32 pesos per kilo). In the noble austerity of the images, I was sometimes reminded of the beautifully cinematic compositions of Mikhail Kalatozov's I Am Cuba. And, like Kalatozov's film, Leche even has a bit of a subversive edge: the narration bounces back and forth between English and Spanish, with numerous title cards featuring both languages (but the order is constantly reversed--sometimes English on top, sometimes Spanish--amusingly confounding the time-harried viewer, or reviewer). Not for all tastes by any means, I nevertheless found Leche to be an interesting viewing experience, and very affordably priced for an experimental film. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)
Leche
(1998) 30 min. $19.95. Naomi Uman (dist. by Canyon Cinema). PPR. Color cover. Vol. 14, Issue 5
Leche
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