email Join our email list! divider Register Login cartCart
Icarus Film
Films from independent
producers worldwide.
32 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201divider(718) 488 8900
Metal and Melancholy

A Film by Heddy Honigmann

 Text Size  Increase Font Size   Decrease Font Size   divider Printable VersionPrintable Version

In this offbeat "road movie," acclaimed documentarian Heddy Honigmann travels with, and thereby discovers the stories of, taxi drivers in Lima. In the early 1990s, in response to Peru's inflationary economy and a government destabilized by corruption and Shining Path terrorism, many middle-class professionals used their own cars to moonlight as taxi drivers in order to weather the financial crisis.

Through the filmmaker's distinctive approach—"I don't do interviews," Honigmann has explained, "I have conversations"—METAL AND MELANCHOLY learns how these part-time cabbies, including a teacher, a Ministry of Justice employee, a film actor, and a policeman, among others, manage to navigate through Lima's congested, pothole-filled streets in dilapidated cars whose survival techniques are as fascinating as those of their owners.

film still

After describing the intimate relationships they've developed with their vehicles, and the ingenious methods they use to thwart car thieves, the taxi drivers open up emotionally to relate heartfelt accounts of domestic adversity, love, life-threatening illness, romance, economically frustrated ambition, pain and suffering. "Life is hard, but beautiful," one of the drivers sums up philosophically.

METAL AND MELANCHOLY also occasionally steps outside the taxis for a heartrending visit to a Lima cemetery, to visit the homes of their drivers and to meet their families, to contend with the swarms of street vendors, including young children, and to snap personal portraits of cars and drivers.

"Revealing…compelling." —The New York Times

*** ½ Stars "A loving portrait… Moving; this portrait of life for the city's cab drivers also becomes an insightful statement about Peruvian national identity." —TV Guide

"Offers a candid and kaleidoscopic view of the poverty-stricken metropolis through each driver-philosopher's tale of hardship. Some of the stories are disarmingly amusing, even comical; others are poignant and sobering." —The Chicago Reader

"A panorama of human spirit and ingenuity." —The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

*** ½ Stars "A wrenching, haunting film…[with] ferocious intelligence and shattering compassion." —Film Central

"An entertaining and colorful documentary that takes a novel approach on portraying the way a severe economic situation can impact the human condition, but also proves even with pain, life goes on and can be beautiful." —Educational Media Reviews Online

2007 Hot Docs International Documentary Festival
2004 Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
2001 The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar
1995 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival
Grand Prix, 1994 Cinéma du Réel
Johnny Jordaan Prize, 1994 Amsterdam Art Fund
Golden Pigeon and the Mercedes-Benz Award, 1994 Leipzig

80 minutes / Color
Spanish / English subtitles
Release: 2007
Copyright: 1993

For individual consumers (home video)

This title is available online from:

For colleges, universities, government agencies, hospitals and corporations

This DVD is sold with a license for institutional use and Public Performance rights.

Subject areas:
Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Economic Sociology, Economics, Latin America, Latin American Studies, Peru, South America, Urban Studies

Watch the trailer:

The Films of Heddy Honigmann

Related Titles:
Home | New | Titles | Subjects | Ordering   
About | Best Sellers | Filmmakers | Screenings   
address
  Follow Us! On...
Facebook Follow Icarus Films on Twitter Instagram Vimeo YouTube
Copyright (c) 2024, Icarus Films
Last Updated January 25, 2024 [Build 3.0.a060-d7]
Privacy Policy