Cabeza de pescado comes across as a very well crafted horror-fantascience movieTaxidermic oddity. Argentine filmmaker July Massaccesi s feature-length début, Cabeza de pescado, which went on limited release in BA last Thursday after numerous festival screenings, is a strange mixture of genres: fanta-science, horror, drama and love story, all concocted into one ominous piece beautifully photographed in b&w by Carlos Augusto Zapparelli, and deftly edited by Rafael Menéndez, who also doubles as cameraman.
From an aesthetic point of view, Cabeza de pescado, then, features amazingly luscious lighting and cinematography. Add to it that the wondrous chiaroscuros never get in the way of the narrative thread, and there you have an atypical chef d’oeuvre, at least in visual terms.

FREAKS. Cabeza de pescado develops a succession of horrendous events, deftly depicted by director Massaccesi, who resorts to analogy, making good use of this expositive and narrative device and never abusing its infinite possibilities. Indeed, the freakish characters in Cabeza de pescado live surrounded by ominous representations of life, embalmed for posterity by taxidermist Calvino (Martín Pavlovsky).
Predictability is not an issue in Cabeza de pescado, for the film is far from pretentious and, instead, sticks to the rules of a specific film genre to then make a very-well-planned detour into altogether different territory.

REQUIEM. As in Darren Aronofsky s Requiem for a Dream, the protagonist, Calvino, is an alienated weirdo trapped in a monstrous imitation of life.
Calvino dutifully practices his trade (taxidermy) without realizing that, instead of the dead carcasses on his workbench, it might as well be him destined for dissection along with wife Stella (Ingrid Pelicori), and mother (Diana Wells).
Middle-aged and marching towards an inexorable fate as the only son of an elderly, almost embalmed woman, and as husband of a grieving wife who loses her mind after the untimely death of their child, Calvino goes about his daily chores with as much vitality as an automaton or a zombie.
It is often said, not without a modicum of reason, that life gives us all one chance, one big break, and that, once gone, it never again comes your way. For once in his life, Calvino’s routine is shattered to pieces — but a whole new world emerges — when he meets Rosie, a young woman in despair, going through the ordeal of domestic violence.
The pairing of Calvino and Rosie, both victims of circumstances beyond their control, inevitably gives way to escapist fantasies that materialize when Calvino decides to leave everything behind and start anew with Rosie.
If Cabeza de pescado’s poster art were blatantly dramatic, with abundant pulp-style visuals, the film would rightly draw die-hard fans of bizarra, of Midnite Movies with the “camp horror” tag stamped on them. They wouldn’t be disappointed, for Cabeza de pescado is rich in allusion but duly restrained when it comes to theatricals.

STUFFED. Audiences reared on more traditional fare wouldn’t be at a loss either: Cabeza de pescado is built around a solid narrative and resourceful set designs and acting.
Martín Pavlovsky, who plays the indrawn Calvino, is as natural as an amateur performer illustrating his own life.
His mean and demeanour, not to mention his unconventional features, create the kind of empathy only attained by fully fleshed characters. Pavlovsky’s style of acting is naturalistic but, strangely enough, it suits all the categories Cabeza de pescado fits in.
Ingrid Pelicori is a seasoned stage and screen performer. As Calvino’s deranged wife, Stella, Pelicori’s performance is like a battlefield after the confrontation is over: all that remains from the person she used to be are shreds of a human being, seemingly resigned to her destiny but suddenly waking up to — and reacting against — a bleak reality.

IN THE FLESH. There are two parallel worlds in Cabeza de pescado: the suffocating, ominous atmosphere in the family home and in Calvino’s taxidermy workshop, and the fresh, invigorating outside world, full of promises and bliss.
When Calvino, choking under the pressure of insane family life, storms out of the house where one and all are as vibrantly alive as the embalmed animals in his taxidermy workshop, his perambulations bring to mind the urban nightmare of Fernando Vidal Olmos, the protagonist of Informe sobre ciegos, the nearly autonomous chapter in Ernesto Sábato s novel Sobre héroes y tumbas.
Enthralling and mysterious, Calvino, as played by Martín Pavlovsky, heightens the empathy with viewers, now eager to find out what the disruption of Calvino’s life will result in.
An intelligent, cleverly put together narrative artifact with arresting visuals, Cabeza de pescado is a rara avis in Argentine cinema, and, in years to come, will surely be featured in a Midnite Movie series with a cult following.
A sip of Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre, anyone?
Buenos Aires Herald,sabado 17 de 2010