La Once (2014) User Reviews

An exceptional documentary

[roman-15 · 8/10 · 26 June 2016]

This documentary explores the relationship between several very mature ladies who were schoolmates and have the habit of meeting each month at one of their homes to have tea together (there the name: "la Once", teatime in Chile). This has been going on for over 40 years. One of the ladies is the director's grandma, and she starts filming the meetings on a regular basis and keeps this up for over six years.

The small chit chat that goes on at these teatimes, the memories they exchange and (specially) the passage of time are really striking.

You start to know and feel for each of these ladies (all upper class that went to a very exclusive girls school). As time goes by, the talk becomes more intimate and gives a deeper glimpse into their deepest feelings.

This film is a true work of love and is very exceptional. Try to see it (recently picked it up at Netflix)

Sometimes the Non-Euclidian Means Kindness and Empathy

[p_radulescu · 20 January 2019]

Is the universe of Maite Alberdi also the one of ours, or a world of herself, with other geometry and other rules of logic? At the beginning it seems that's our known universe, however something is weird, and calls in mind the non-Euclidian. Says she, estoy obsesionada con lo insólito de la realidad (I am obsessed with the insolite of reality), which means it is our world, only she has the craft to discover the non-Euclidian here, in our day-to-day geometry.

Sometimes this non-Euclidian means just kindness and empathy, like in La Once (Tea Time): five ladies meet each month around the tea, in a ritual that's taking place for sixty years. Each time they repeat the same small stories, kind memories of a time bygone; they repeat the same small stories each time, in almost the same words, and the others listen without interrupting, because these small stories, like the cups of tea and the cakes, and like themselves, are part of the same ritual of a time bygone.