SLAFF – Cows Wearing Glasses

Screening as part of the 9th Sydney Latin American Film Festival

Cows Wearing Glasses

Review by Gemma

This meditative film from Puerto Rico centres on Marso, an aging artist and teacher who is losing his sight. The film follows him from the time of his diagnosis. He is not a lovable man; estranged from his daughter, unloved by his students, his only other contacts with the outside world are his pharmacist, his cleaner, a fellow artist, and his agent.

The film travels at the same pace as Marso, slowly, haltingly, and is shot in long, single-camera scenes. The film follows his attempts to re-engage with his daugher, a writer of self help books, interspersed with his attempts to adapt to his new reality, and his limited relationships.

You get a sense of the gradual indignities of aging without it ever demanding pity for Marso. This is not a film that shows anger, or a raging at the dying of the light, but accurately depicts how, with age, the world shrinks down to become small again.

Sad? A little, but that’s not the aim, nor result of the film. It’s a more reflective journey, showing how for the estranged father there is also pain at the loss of the father-daughter relationship, and how choices we make years earlier can continue to haunt us.

A still from the film