Roberto is lugubrious, cantankerous, out of step with the world and quite happy with this state of affairs. His hardware store, in suburban Buenos Aires, is as much excuse for waging war with humanity as it is a means of making a living. He lives alone in a house that he has scarcely changed since his father’s death three decades past; in his free time, he scours newspapers for tales of the absurd and improbable, which he cuts out and pastes in albums with a certain sour satisfaction. All things considered, he seems rather content with his lot.
Chinese Take-Out, written and directed by Sebastian Borensztein takes an oblique, yet amusing path to exploring the meaning of personal contentment. One understands pretty quickly that Roberto’s gruffness is an elaborate construct, intended – consciously or not – to protect him from the caprices of an uncertain world. Mari, visiting family in the big city and inexplicably attracted to Roberto’s lack of charm, takes the direct route to piercing his carapace: “I can tell that you are a man with integrity and suffering,” she tells him, doe-like eyes radiating innocence and coquettishness in equal measure. To no avail.
Drama literally falls at Roberto’s feet when Jun tumbles from a passing taxi. Jun has experienced his own fair share of sadness and absurdity in his native China; singularly unprepared, he has travelled halfway across the world to find his uncle in Argentina. With no money, no Spanish and the (out of date) address tattooed inside his forearm his only lead, he needs an open-hearted person to help him along in his quixotic task. One is hard put to decide whom one ought to feel more sorry for given the inauspicious circumstances, helpless Jan or hope-less Roberto.
Despite its modest underpinnings, Chinese Take-Out – the highest grossing non-US film in Argentina in 2011 – has an undeniable charm. Ricardo Darin – best known for playing the hustler Marcos in 2000’s Nine Queens – brings a physical gusto to his role, animated facial tics and exaggerated physicality conveying a palpable comic irritation. Ignacio Huang plays Jun as a wide-eyed innocent, but with something held back in reserve. Cultural and language obstacles are a given; Mari’s good hearted percipience may or may not be enough to pull them through the inevitable mishaps, but one can’t but help rooting for the very odd couple thrown together in this theatre of the absurd.
Chinese Take-Out (2011, 93 min., Spanish/Chinese with English and Hebrew subtitles)
Written and directed by Sebastian Borenszstein
Chinese Take-Out will be released in Israeli theatres Thursday, January 17, 2013.
