Cachimba (Latin American Cinema 2004)

An ironic look at nationalism and the art world, the humor of Cachimba is underplayed and painful. Marcos, a dull accountant is dating Hilda, a chubby and insecure young lady. Marcos makes moves on her while Hilda continues to repulse him, holding out for marriage. Eventually, Marcos persuades her to do the naughty and in hopes of a daylight romp persuades her to vacation with him for a few days in Cartegena. While negotiating the physical aspects of their relationship, they stumble across a dilapidated museum of art. A crotchety old man, Felipe, is the caretaker of the museum and the corpus of a little known and neglected Chilean artist. Marcos finds himself enamored of the art work and determined to save the works for the posterity of the Chilean people.

Based on a book of the same name by Jose Donoso, Cachimba is, then, the story of what happens when commercial interests become involved with art. In spite of his best intentions, Marcos begins a sequence of events that leads to the destruction of Felipe and the exploitation of the art work. Corruption wins out and even Marcos and Hilda fall prey to it, albeit in a "nice" way. The cinematography is very good. This movie won over 20 festival awards and is well worth seeing. It is fairly slow moving, but the story, scenery, music, and acting are so good that one just goes along with the flow.