The Eastern Republic of Uruguay, better known by its abbreviated name of Uruguay, is renowned as one of the smallest states in Latin America: this is a fact. Decades ago it was called "the model country" or the "Switzerland of the Americas": this is a myth. But unfortunately what we do know is that it is also a country with a non-existent national cinema. Paradoxically, Montevideo has the most important film library in Latin America, the Cinemateca Uruguaya , only just bettered in quantity by the cinematic archives of the United States Library of Congress.

Uruguayan film culture is full of anecdotes. When Argentinean Peronism prohibited films such as Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, the inhabitants of Buenos Aires crossed the Río de la Plata, (exclusively in chartered cruisers) just to see it. Maybe it seems like a joke but until very recently, 1994 to be precise, El Dirigible, a very strange film by Pablo Dotta, debuted at the Cannes Festival as "the first film in Uruguayan history", and in Buenos Aires as "the first spoken Uruguayan film"; whilst the press dossier presented it as "the first national spoken film on 35mm". Each of these classifications were nothing more than an ingenious publicity stunt, but many people believed it given that they had never before heard of, let alone seen, a film made in Uruguay.

In relative terms, Uruguay has produced around a dozen films in the last ten years, all of which of notable quality and triumphed on the world's film festival circuits. To mention just a few recent examples, we have Beatriz Silva's En la puta vida (2003), Aldo Garay's La Espera (2003) and 25 Watts (2001) by Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll. It is perhaps for this reason that when a Uruguayan film appears, it is time to celebrate.

The most recent Uruguayan film (a title it will hold for some time) is Whisky created by the aforementioned Rebella and Stoll who have managed a real accomplishment: making two Uruguayan films. In their production notes they mention that "it is extremely difficult to produce a film in Uruguay. Of course, in practice this statement applies to any Latin American country and continues to be true. But in Uruguay it is difficult to produce anything at all: manufactured, for example, as seen in Whisky".

It could be that this affirmation is a kind of justification for Rebella and Stoll's "stubbornness" about making films that demonstrate just how difficult it is to make a film, but they make them, perhaps, to banish the pessimism that has been assigned to the Uruguayans.   As far as the spectators are concerned, they could conclude that Whisky exploits this difficult vein of the Uruguayans' idiosyncrasy, characterised in their own imagination as pessimists, conservatives, sad by nature, or melancholy. Many Uruguayans see themselves as morose, living in a "grey country".

It is when one thinks of those basically archetypal descriptions of Uruguayans that one can best understand the uncomfortable routine that we witness in the film's characters and the idea that the directors wish to show us.

Whisky is a simple and slightly absurd story about three people trying to realize themselves through other people. Jacobo Köller is the owner of a declining sock factory that survives on only three employees. Marta is one of these; she is his right hand but only at the factory. Jacobo and Marta maintain an icy relationship, if you can call it a relationship at all. Perhaps both wish that things were different, especially Marta, but the ritual of working together submerges them in a curious and morbid routine, void of any surprises. As a result, Marta seems to have lost all hope, she assumes she will continue to be "the employee" forever, today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, just like that, as long as God wants. These last phrases paraphrasing the very words that they share each and every day before they say goodbye; Jacobo says "see you tomorrow", Marta responds "...if God wishes", and off she goes home listening to ballads by Leonardo Favio.

That placid equilibrium in Marta and Jacobo's working routine is in danger when Herman, his younger brother, who lives in Brazil and who he has not seen for a very long time, decides to visit him in order to pay respects to his long-deceased mother, and it is here that the film begins. Jacobo, trying to assimilate a normal life in front of Herman, proposes that Marta pose as his wife. Once an agreement has been reached, Marta moves into Jacobo's house and from that moment on, he has to take on another kind of routine that will be the same as before but with two guests living in his house.

In one sense, Herman seems to be different from Jacobo, but soon we see that they are actually complimentary and so we forget that they could be viable successors to Cain and Abel, without mentioning which is which. Marta, impressed by his frailty, becomes the balance between the two brothers. She is ready to make sure that those theatrical days together with the Köllers are the happiest of her life because suddenly, perhaps there will not be a second chance. The characters' journey to an earthly paradise, called Piriapolis, provides the perfect setting for each to see exactly what they are capable of. There, amongst swimming pools, casinos, walks along the beach and nights of binging, they at least find smiles, bad jokes and more than one moment to remember. In short, a trip that seems destined to fail becomes a celebration of friendship, dignity and respect.

With current cinema plagued by dialogues, loud voices or ridiculously theatrical monologues, Whisky appears shining calmly like a jewel full of silence, of invitations to the meaning rather than the words themselves, of promised dialogues that never materialise. As spectators, we always want to find those rare films made up of and driven by images, valiant images, or banal ones, that suggest things to us, that promise us "that special something". That show us that which we cannot see or say, and it is precisely this the essence of cinematographic art as visual art.

Whisky, with its extraordinary lucidity, reconciles us with this cinema of unedited images. When Rebella and Stoll decide to shoot a film without moving the camera, come what may, they are in search of those indefinable images, but they are also making a pact with the devil, and at the end, they win. Finally, when we astonish ourselves with films such as Whisky, we can truly ask ourselves why it is so difficult to make them, and with this I am reminded of the film professor who, altering his voice as if giving clues for finding the film enthusiast's holy grail, tells his students that, "making excellent films is not shooting a films, it is shooting excellent films".

More Information:

http://www.whisky.com.uy/

View trailer (banda annonce) en MK2 France

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