NYFF '24: "Lázaro at Night" asks what you really want

by Cláudio Alves

Treading the line between documentary and fiction filmmaking, Nicolás Pereda continues his collaboration with the Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol theater collective in his latest film. Lázaro at Night can, at times, feel like an acting exercise spinning out of control yet perpetually low-key, a sort of screwball comedy on a morphine drip. It's the story of three friends in their forties, living in Mexico City, where they pursue work as actors and fall into a peculiar love triangle. In this, Lázaro G. Rodríguez, Luisa Pardo, and Francisco Barreiro are basically playing themselves. Or, at the very least, a fictionalized version of their identities, twisted for the pleasure of Pereda and a film that confounds aplenty but is also captivating in its own odd way…

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NYFF: Nicolás Pereda's "Fauna"

by Jason Adams

The title of Fauna, the latest film from Mexican-Canadian director Nicolás Pereda, turns out to be good enough a punchline that I'd never spoil it, but it's one of those punchlines where the characters themselves get to burst into laughter at it -- it's extra-textual enough for everybody to recognize its ridiculousness all at once, even as it exists within the narrative. There are many such laughs in the film but highlighting that distinction up-front matters. The space between the people on-screen and the people watching? Well, Pereda's having a heap of fun wigglin' all around in that uncanny void...

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