Argentine filmmaker Sebaztian Baz wants to satirize social media in his debut movie Sombras Chinas. But what’s billed as a comedic thriller isn’t that funny, and the thrills come from the same places that other films have mined before. Other than the vertical presentation, there’s nothing unique about this ill-fated adventure.
Candela Del Zotto plays Cande, an influencer who naturally lives her entire life on Instagram. The character is one-note and aloof, embodying the stereotype of social media personalities. This makes a certain amount of sense given that the movie is trying to satirize influencer culture, but when there’s little beyond that, it becomes hard to care about Cande beyond her being the protagonist. Especially since the movie’s core problem starts with her relative lack of common sense. Every viewer watching Sombras Chinas knows that it’s not a good idea for a young woman to get into a cab with a 60-year-old man she doesn’t know, and trouble unsurprisingly follows.
What Baz has to say about social media and public versus private image is what people have been talking about since “influencer” became a career. It just happens to be presented somewhat differently. The 16:9 presentation is meant to mimic a vertically-held phone, but that’s not a huge departure from other “screenlife” movies, and the amount of unused space becomes a distraction the longer the movie goes on. For a better use of this format, film buffs should take a look at the horror picture Serena, which creates the intimacy that Sombras Chinas is trying to attain by effectively using every inch of space to add further detail. Vertical video clips get criticized online for a valid reason; they’re less engaging and it’s harder to appreciate detail. If Baz came up with some reason for Cande and her friends to be holding their phones horizontally—even if it was just while filming themselves, knowing it would make for better video—that would create some visual variety, and this movie might be a different story.
There are a few moments in Sombras Chinas where the humor absolutely lands. Late in the movie, keep an eye out for a low battery warning that turns into a hilariously accurate commentary on the discrepancy between social media statistics and real life. It’s one of the funniest visual gags in any film in recent memory. Unfortunately, there’s not enough of that. Satire has a high degree of self-deprecation, but most of the jokes in the movie come from that one well of laughing at the characters. A few more comments at the audience’s expense and not just the characters would also strengthen the movie, especially since Baz is spot-on when he does step back and look at the big picture.
Carlos Benincasa plays the cab driver El Polanco, whom Cande refers to as “Pola,” and he embodies the “old man yells at cloud” idea fairly well. Off the bat, there’s the creepy idea that this 60-year-old man spends an awful lot of time driving around young women, and the production crew makes him look as slovenly as possible. He’s appropriately uncomfortable to watch, yet Pola never makes that complete leap from “get off my lawn” to full-blown Network moment. Without spoiling, the ending of Sombras Chinas is one of its weak spots.
One can understand what Baz is trying to say and that he’s trying to find a unique way to say it. Sombras Chinas is billed as the first 16:9 movie to be released theatrically in Argentina, and per statistics given to press, it was also made for less than 20 percent of the cost of an average Argentine movie. But as statistically impressive as that is, content-wise there’s nothing that a wider audience would consider groundbreaking. Social media is indeed worthy of being poked at; it leaves plenty of room for comedy. Yet U.S. moviegoers have seen this story before, and there’s not a strong enough hook within this film for them to watch it again.
For more on Sombras Chinas, visit the film’s IMDb page. Photo Credit: Courtesy of the filmmakers.
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