Competing in the Berlinale’s Encounters section, A Little Love Package is directed by Buenos Aires-born Gaston Solnicki, who mixes staged and documentary sequences as the mood dictates. Despite its title, and despite being described in the festival program as “a classic comedy”, the film has little love or laughter to offer. There is bickering and resentment surfacing among friends and relatives. There are, thankfully, other moments of still bliss and witty observation, as we watch a mother combing her daughter’s long hair, or meteorite rocks, cheeses, and shoes lined up on shelves. These juxtapositions keep the viewer interested, as we move through Vienna’s timeless cafés and monuments.
Solnicki proudly proclaims he films spontaneously, without a written script, but the result risks becoming a disjointed, capricious choice of sequences. In his previous films, screened in major festivals, he has mixed genres, actors and non-pros in a similarly fragmented style (Kékszakállú, Papirosen, Introduzione all’Oscuro). His latest offering has a multi-ethnic cast who speak in various languages, which may be alluded to when the camera pans over the Tower of Babel and other Brueghel paintings at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and we are reminded of the sometimes hostile cultural mix the city symbolizes. Two talented actresses, Greek Angeliki Papoulia and British Carmen Chaplin, play characters in search of the perfect apartment, with Chaplin showing exasperation at her friend’s indecisiveness. They were told to improvise and it shows in the repetitive dialogue, but their meanderings allow us to roam Vienna’s elegant streets and interiors. Yet there is a menacing mood lying just below the glamorous façades, one Solnicki refers to when he reveals that persecuted Jewish families had to hide in secret tunnels during the Second World War.
Architecture and design play an important role in the film. Rui Poças’ crisp cinematography focuses on the lines and lighting of a shop window displaying mink coats, or the tempting contents of a chocolate box. Some scenes are lit by candles or flashlights; others are shot in the bright sunlight of southern Spain. A child’s chalk drawings on a blackboard divide the non-linear structure of the film into chapters: the brain, the heart, money. A Spanish language narrator strings together some of the more disparate sequences; at other times we are left to figure out connections and motifs on our own.
Federico Coletta’s use of natural sound is carefully calibrated: the creaking floorboards of a museum, the rumors of radiators in old apartment buildings, horses’ hooves on cobbled streets. A Korean pianist delicately plays a melody; elsewhere Schubert and Mahler liven up the soundscape.
The film also takes us to Andalusia, where the aging, bright-eyed Michael Chaplin (Charlie’s son and Carmen’s father in real life) lives with his family among herds of goats overlooking the Mediterranean. His three daughters candidly discuss how to care for their aging parents, while their infant children display scant interest. Other scenes are less beguiling, as in the detailed explanation of how to boil an egg, explained first in German and then through an English language interpreter.
Vienna’s Café Weidinger and the Kleines Café are well worth a visit, as we watch defiant smokers light up and exhale in each other’s faces before a new smoking ban takes effect. Closer to Solnicki’s home, the Tortoni café in Buenos Aires is a charming example of the resilient survival of places where the culture of conversation can flourish while sipping one’s favorite drink – not necessarily smoking- even in times of Covid.
Director: Gaston Solnicki
Cast: Angeliki Papoulia, Carmen Chaplin, Mario Bellatin
Producers: Paolo Calamita, Zsusanna Kiràly, Gaston Solnicki
Cinematography: Rui Poças
Editing: Alan Martin Segal
Sound Design: Jason Candler, Manuel de Andres
Sound: Federico Coletta
Production companies: Little Magnet Films (Austria), Filmy Wiktora (Argentina)
Venue: Berlin International Film Festival (Encounters)
In German, English, Spanish
81 minutes
