![La Cifra Impar [The Odd Number] cover image](/img/covers/cifra.jpg)
La Cifra Impar [The Odd Number] 1960
Distributed by LAVA - Latin American Video Archives, 124 Washington Place, New York, NY 10014; 212-243-4804
Produced by Harding-Schon Productions
Directed by Manuel Antin
VHS, b&, 85 min, Spanish with English sub-titles
College - Adult
Latin American Studies, Argentina
Date Entered: 01/10/2005
Reviewed by Susan Weber, Langara College, AEMAC, Vancouver, BCBased on the short story by Julio Cortazar, Letters from Mother, this film is a complex story with only four characters. These are 2 brothers, Nico and Luis, their mother, and Laura, married to Luis and living with him in Paris. Using flashback, we learn that Nico is dead, but not before falling in love with Laura. Meanwhile the mother, in Buenos Aires, believes her dead son is still writing to her and that he will soon come to Paris for a visit.
The ghost of Nico haunts the living in melodramatic and melancholic ways. The camera work and haunting music are Hitchcock and Antonioni reminders. The growing angst that the living are feeling about the memories of the dead Luis contribute to a sense of tension and anxiety.
Antin elevated Argentinian cinema with this work, a mastery of suspense and drama. Recommended for Latin American studies and film studies programs.
Also reviewed in: Otrocampo, and Criticas, July/August 2004, p.66