OBLIVION
Written & Directed by Heddy Honigmann
Produced by Carmen Cobos
Released by Icarus Films
Spanish with English subtitles
The Netherlands/France/Germany. 93 min. Not Rated
 

Lima’s service class—not living on the edge so much as circling oblivion—works hard, and without social advancement. But Heddy Honigmann’s new film about her Peruvian hometown’s proud waiters, beggars, and bartenders is not a portrait of poverty. Instead, she shares her wonder that a segment of a society so malnourished from ruinous presidential administrations, devastating hyperinflation, epic corruption, international ignorance, and the lingering ideals of both revolution and colonialism can survive, fight, and still function.

The film opens with the perfect person to set the scene: a bartender. A lifelong worker for an upscale bar, Jorge Kanashiro kept his job longer than most of Peru’s dictators held power, and he served them all a pisco sour. He jokes with solemnity about why he couldn’t share news with his friends of Peru’s economic downfall in advance—abusing the trust of his customers would go against his professional code of honor. On the other hand, we’re later introduced to a 14-year-old boy who shines shoes rather than go to school, has no aspiration beyond survival, and says he can’t remember ever being happy.

Honigmann knows when to let her camera take a quick survey, or when a 15-minute interview is best, and that each conveys a story as much as the other. An interview with a woman who divorced her husband because of how much more devoted she was to her job in a fancy hotel stretches on, but a quick peek into a catering class where future waiters are taught the importance of smiling resonates just as strongly.

The simplicity of Honigmann’s directorial tricks let the film’s heart breath. When she sets her camera down in an empty café, time passes, and a couple appears at a table. Proud and optimistic, the man tells the camera that he and his wife have now been married for exactly 24 hours. Time passes, and the café is empty again.

But her lens is not a roving eye in an urban jungle. Overlaid with footage of each successive dictator promising to serve Peru’s poor, the interviews articulate a city stuck in an international vacuum—Gotham without a Batman, where citizens cope with prevalent corruption using only their own mettle.

The high-definition digital photography won’t blow you away, and the stories told here are not unparalleled. Still, Honigmann offers what she does best: a glimpse into a sector of a society that most audiences won’t ever experience, but should. Honigmann argues that part of the oblivion to which Peru’s leaders have sentenced the country includes invisibility from the international community. Why has rampant corruption continued? Because no one is looking. Why do the lower classes of Peru still suffer in silence from these abuses of power? Because no one is looking. Honigmann wants you to look. Zachary Jones
April 15, 2009