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Dec 27, 2014Nursebob rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Biniez’s modest little film offers an endearing look at love and romance in the age of video surveillance. Gentle giant Jara, kind-hearted and terribly shy, works the graveyard shift at a large supermarket where he spends his nights halfheartedly monitoring the store’s many closed circuit security cameras and doing crossword puzzles. One evening he becomes smitten by a certain cleaning woman and begins zooming in on her; following her around electronically as she mops the floor each night and has the occasional run-in with her boss. Not content with admiring her through a B&W lens (he even falls asleep at home watching innocuous video loops of her) he begins following her after work; to the store, the gym, the internet cafe, the movie theatre, all the while trying to make himself into the man he thinks she might be interested in. After a few comic misadventures fate finally gives him the opportunity he’s been waiting for: a chance to actually talk to her. Despite the problematic premise there are no elements of the psychotic stalker in Jara’s character, nor is there any of the monomaniacal obsessiveness of 2006’s Red Road. Instead we are presented with a well-meaning, sweetly naive man who longs for a romantic connection but is not quite sure how to go about making that leap from televised image to real woman. His predicament subtly addresses the problems inherent in a world where the internet gives the illusion of physical intimacy; browsing photos and mpeg files is easy, actually meeting requires courage. But when Jara finally does meet the woman of his video dreams the camera discreetly pulls back; Biniez is not going to allow us to be privy to their first conversation, relegating us instead to the role of detached voyeurs once again. Beautiful in its simplicity.