Architecture on Film: Balnearios

Balnearios (Mariano Llinás, Argentina, 2002, 80 mins)

A deep dive into the fantasies and realities of Argentine bathing resorts – “modern pagan cities given to the worship of the sea” – from one of contemporary cinema’s most significant and singular auteurs: Mariano Llinás.

Blurring sharp social geography with masterfully sardonic storytelling, the debut feature from Mariano Llinás (La Flor, Extraordinary Stories) offers a ‘documentary’ in four chapters. A portrait of four Argentine bathing resorts unfolds a journey from the sea to the provinces, via a noirish parable of a phantasmagoric hotel, a granular sociology of the beach, a trip to a mysterious Atlantis and an encounter with the enigmatic Zucco.

A rarely screened gem from a vital voice in cinema, reflecting, in bemused obsession, like an act of critical and fantastical beachcombing, on the “the multi-purpose stadium” of the sand, and the “pharaonic cities” built beside it.