Valentin

Released 2002
Stars Rodrigo Noya, Carmen Maura, Julieta Cardinali, Mex Urtizberea, Alejandro Agresti
Directed by Alejandro Agresti

If 8-year old Valentin (Rodrigo Noya) was any less optimistic and proactive, he might become one of life's casualties. Abandoned by his father (who is living in another city and too busy with his mistresses to have time for a son) and mother (who fled to get away from her husband), Valentin is being raised by his widowed grandmother (Carmen Maura). Without friends of his own age, Valentin seeks the company of adults, essentially looking for a surrogate family. He finds a father-figure in Rufo (Mex Urtizberea), a sad-sack music teacher, and a mother-figure in Leticia (Julieta Cardinali), one of his father's girlfriends.

Valentin doesn't have much of a story arc. Writer/director Alejandro Agresti is content to show slices of life from the point-of-view of the precocious 8-year old. The voice of the narrator belongs to the title character, although from the perspective of an undisclosed time in the future. The film concentrates on Valentin's relationships with his grandmother, his father (director Agresti), Rufo, and Leticia. Valentin is a clever and energetic child, and, rather than bemoaning his circumstances, he sets out to fix them.

Summary by James Berardinelli

Why do so many foreign directors make autobiographical films about their childhoods? I think one reason is because they're cheap to make, but I'll give them credit that they do them well. In "Valentin," director Alejandro Agresti avoids the sentimentality traps and creates an optimistic portrait of his challenged childhood. One of the reasons the movie works is because he used his childhood as the genesis for the story instead of slavishly sticking to the details of his life. He viewed the project as a film first, and he created a nice little movie. --Bill Alward, November 28, 2004