The Hours Go By

Argentine cinema at its most artily pretentious, lacking both the vitality and freshness that mark much of that country’s recent fare, and the piercing precision of, say, Lucrecia Martel. It’s a painfully slow, studied piece, with scenes alternating between a piano teacher taking her ailing mum for a drive in the country and the former’s husband taking their young son on a trip to the coast. Little happens plotwise or in any other significant regard, until a few minutes from the end when an improbable twist brings a little suspense into play.  Otherwise it’s implausible monologues, distractingly clumsy anamorphic distortions and portentous sound effects; one suspects the director has been watching too much Sokurov and Bartas.