Freedom
(La Libertad)

Misael lives in the woods of a vast property in La Pampa Province. He earns a modest living as woodcutter and has very limited contact with the rest of society. La libertad, Lisandro Alonso’s debut feature film, follows a typical day in the life of Misael. The film explores the cinema of presence, focussing above all on the temporality of its main character. But what freedom does the film title allude to? Misale’s freedom, once he has finished his work day? The freedom of Lisandro Alonso, the actual son of Misael’s boss, who projects on his subject a transcendentalist ideal? Unless “libertad”, a word merrily shouted out in Argentina’s national anthem, is a value not yet attained, the project of a future film that could readily embody the liberation of Misael. CA