Camila (Agustina Muñoz, The Princess of France), a young Argentine theater director, travels from Buenos Aires to New York for an artist residency to work on a new Spanish translation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Upon her arrival, she quickly realizes that her work isn't compensating for the loss of her friends and the lover she left behind. When she begins to receive a series of mysterious postcards from Danièle (Mati Diop, Claire Denis's 35 Shots of Rum), a former participant in the same residency, Camila second-guesses her artistic endeavors and begins to seek answers about her past.
Part of the charm of Hermia & Helena is in the way it freely and randomly plays with form, employing luxuriantly slow dissolves, unexpected snatches of superimposed text, and even a black-and-white film-within-the-film.
Always delightful, Hermia & Helena sees Piñeiro making an auteur film that fits into his oeuvre while expanding it in exciting directions-and en route, he makes New York his own.
If Hermia & Helena triumphs on all fronts, it does so largely thanks to the contribution of Fernando Lockett, the photography director, who portrays the actors with a choreographic charm. [Full review in Spanish]
By positioning Shakespeare within a chatty tale of young adulthood - and giving it a feminist slant - Piñeiro proves the vitality of the material without becoming subservient to it.
There are a few different potential films within Hermia & Helena - a Shakespeare adaptation, a tale of romantic relationships, a tale of family - but the totality proves a sunny and affable literary collage.
Things are never quite what they seem in this film's mischievous scheme, and although this idea feels breezy as it's playing out, there's something essential and very human about that observation.
The film runs smoothly, with naturalism, dropping the main secrets of the main character in small doses as they pass through both cities. [Full review in Spanish]
