Balnearios

Lifeguards, luxury hotels from early XXth Century, mermaids, sea animals and sand castles gather in this labyrinthine essay. A "documentary" about balnearios, Argentine bath resorts and the idea of cities dedicated exclusively to idleness, empty along the winter months and crowded in the summer.

The first film by Llinás is an affectionate and slightly irreverent meditation on an Argentine cultural icon little known to the outside world: the turn-of-the century sea resorts that linger on in the popular imagination as an ideal of leisure, recreation and national prosperity. As an essay film, Balnearios unfolds through a series of twisting and leaping synoptic moves that anticipate the complex fragmentary structures and strategies explored in his later epic films. An odd and humorous encyclopedia regarding costumes and stories from Argentine bath resorts. Cities under water, lifeguards, luxury hotels from early XXth Century, mermaids, dams, small town public resorts, sea animals and sand castles gather in a surprising and labyrinthical essay. The idea of cities dedicated exclusively to idleness, watering and rest, completely empty along the winter months and crowded in the summer; the idea of modern pagan cities given to the worship of the sea, may be thought as a strange, fascinating phenomenon. This film is the result of such fascination. – Mariano Llinás