El Otro

Argentine New Wave meets Antonioni in Ariel Rotter's second film, the story of a man who takes a business trip to a country town and suddenly decides to change his identity and reinvent his life.

El Otro could easily have been crushingly pretentious - many before have tried and failed to draw inspiration from Monica Vitti's walk in La Notte. But Rotter - helped enormously by a note-perfect performance by Julio Chávez - manages to invest his central character's wanderings with both tension and a sense of existential dread.

One night-time walk back to town, in particular, is both poetic and quietly terrifying. A must-see for fans of the new Argentine cinema - and a great introduction for those yet to discover its mysterious riches.

Nick Roddick