Thursday, March 21, 5:30 pm, UNC Cone Center McKnight Auditorium
Friday, April 5, 2:30 pm, UNC, Student Union 340 A-C
Sebastián Borensztein, Argentina, 2012/98 min.
Spanish with English subtitles
Sponsors: Pragda Grant, Spanish Club CEPA
Additional sponsors: the UNC Charlotte German Club.
A discussion will follow the screening.
Argentina’s national treasure, Ricardo Darín, is best known for his intense dramatic performances in films such as Nine Queens, The Aura, and the Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes, but his brilliant comic timing in this instant classic helped make Chinese Take-Away the biggest home-grown box office success of 2011 in Argentina. Darín plays Roberto, a gruff, anti-social loner who lords over his tiny hardware shop in Buenos Aires with a meticulous sense of control and routine, barely allowing for the slightest of customer foibles. After a chance encounter with Jun, a Chinese man who has arrived in Argentina looking for his only living relative, Roberto takes him in. Their unusual cohabitation helps Roberto bring an end to his loneliness, but not without revealing to the impassive Jun that destiny’s intersections are many and can even explain the film’s surreal opening sequence: a brindled cow falling from the sky.
“Many really good films allow us to empathize with other lives. I became invested in Roberto and shared his curiosity about the enigmatic Jun. I cared. The film deserved my care.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times
