Brief Heaven

Brief Heaven
Directed byDavid José Kohon
Written byDavid José Kohon
StarringAna Maria Picchio
Edited byArmando Blanco
Gerardo Rinaldi
Music byAstor Piazzolla
Release date
  • 5 June 1969 (1969-06-05)
Running time
84 minutes
CountryArgentina
LanguageSpanish

Brief Heaven (Spanish: Breve cielo) is a 1969 Argentine film directed by David José Kohon. It was entered into the 6th Moscow International Film Festival where Ana María Picchio won the award for Best Actress.[1]

In a survey of the 100 greatest films of Argentine cinema carried out by the Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken in 2000, the film reached the 24th position.[2] In a new version of the survey organized in 2022 by the specialized magazines La vida útil, Taipei and La tierra quema, presented at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, the film reached the 41st position.[3]

Plot

A young middle-class man and a young girl who has left the slums to work as a prostitute meet by chance on the Plaza de los Ingleses, opposite the emblematic Retiro station in Buenos Aires. Their encounter lasts no more than a day and morning, an enchanted lapse of time that echoes the title Brief Heaven. Kohon’s beautiful but sad film draws the picture of the nascent change in a generation’s mentality (unabashedly conveyed by the only elliptic erotic scene), while also asserting a new way of filming. The streets and promenades of Buenos Aires offer a welcome to the characters but also play a clearly aesthetic role, as for example, in the remarkable tracking shot that moves through the underground gallery near the Obelisk to the echoing notes of Piazzolla’s bandoneon. Roger Koza

Cast

References

  1. ^ "6th Moscow International Film Festival (1969)". MIFF. Archived from the original on 2013-01-16. Retrieved 2012-12-17.
  2. ^ "Las 100 mejores del periodo 1933-1999 del Cine Argentino". La mirada cautiva (3). Buenos Aires: Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken: 6–14. 2000. Archived from the original on 21 November 2022. Retrieved 21 November 2022 – via Encuesta de cine argentino 2022 on Google Drive.
  3. ^ "Top 100" (in Spanish). Encuesta de cine argentino 2022. 11 November 2022. Retrieved 13 November 2022.