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Perpetuum Mobile
All Things Were Now Overtaken by Silence
Gabino Rodríguez returns as an itinerant mover, working from the streets of Mexico City with his partner and living with his beleaguered mother, played once again by Teresa Sanchez. A heightened tension within the home – by the absent older brother and unmentioned father. Pereda’s most tightly structured and intricately plotted feature, Perpetuum Mobile fully punctures the drifting rhythm of Rodriguez’s casual pursuit of a career with the series of intense and almost satirically telenovela-esque domestic vignettes encountered by the movers. – HG
Pereda’s background in video installation is clearly revealed in this, his most formally radical work – a meticulously staged reading of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz´s classic poem, Primer sueño, with celebrated Mexican actress and director, Jesusa Rodríguez portraying the legendary writer reciting her spellbinding poetry in various strikingly theatrical poses. Shot in high contrast black and white during the filming of an educational television program about Sor Juana, All Things Were Now Overtaken by Silence reinvents the original film from the margins. Devoting equal time to the production of the film itself as the poetry, All Things… transforms the struggle of Pereda and his crew to find the ideal shadow and camera angle into abstract and mesmerizing drama. – HG