A meaningful embrace

This engaging and perceptive little film from Jewish Argentinian Daniel Burman is set within a down-at-heel Buenos Aires shopping mall, where Ariel (Daniel Hendler) works with his family alongside noisy Italians and deadpan Koreans.

He wants a Polish passport, not to visit his grandparents, who fled there from the Holocaust, but to be able to travel to Israel, the country for which his father went to fight and from whence he never returned.

The lost embrace of the title finally comes when his father pays him a visit.

Burman's skill in creating believable characters, and making ordinary people seem interesting, is everywhere apparent.

This film won Silver Bears at Berlin for Hendler as best actor and for being one of the best entries of 2004.

A small film of great charm with a lot to say.

Lost Embrace (El Abrazo Partido)
Cert: 15