Product Details

• Actors:  Adriana Aizemberg Daniel Hendler
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Korean, Spanish, Yiddish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: New Yorker
• DVD Release Date: February 14, 2006
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000CQQI80
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #95,998 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Lost Embrace" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Set in Buenos Aires’ vibrant Jewish community, Lost Embrace conjures up an irresistible ensemble of engaging and quirky characters that pursue their dreams with humor, passion and an infectious generosity of spirit. Ariel is a recent college dropout with hopes of escaping a career at his mother’s lingerie store in a multi-cultural shopping mall. The job comes with its perks, but as tantalizing as helping beautiful women slip in and out of lingerie can be, Ariel seeks a more fulfilling life. Dressing-room trysts with sexy vixen Rita can’t go on forever; and Estela, his now pregnant ex-girlfriend, no longer needs him. While hoping to secure a European passport, which will allow him to travel the world, Ariel first has to shake a head-spinning dose of reality: his long-lost father is about to return, forcing Ariel to accept a long-overdue reunion with the father he has been running away from all his life.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Searching for Identity While Living in the Midst of It, November 25, 2007

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lost Embrace (DVD)

EL ABRAZO PARTIDO (LOST EMBRACE) not only succeeds in presenting a microcosm of society by focusing a story on the Jewish 'ghetto'/ mini-mall in Buenos Aires, it also captures the audience's attention in the age-old struggle for finding roots or identity. It is a beautifully sculpted story, composed of bits and pieces of tales from the vantage of many of the characters, told (and acted) with a tender honesty that makes the simple story warmly compelling. Director/writer (with Marcelo Birmajer) Daniel Burman bring this little tale of family struggle to life and the journey toward the Lost Embrace is an enriching one.

Ariel Makaroff (Daniel Hendler) is at odds with his family's history: fleeing from Poland to Buenos Aires in World War II to escape persecution of Jews, the family Makaroff have settled into a simple existence in running shops the mall. Ariel helps his mother Sonia (Adriana Aizemberg) run a lingerie shop called Elias Creations, named for Ariel's father who has long ago deserted his family to flee to Israel to fight the wars there. While Ariel takes advantage of the sultry lingerie clientele, such as the much older and seductive Rita (Silvina Bosco) to fill his days, he is discontent and decides he will become a European by obtaining a Polish passport from documents he gathers from his reluctant grandmother (Rosita Londner) who is the only family member born in Poland. He is abetted and simultaneously discouraged by those who surround him in the mall, but Ariel's drive to move to Europe is grounded in much deeper concerns: he longs to settle the abandonment issues with his father Elias (Jorge D'Elía) and find his own identity freed from the failing economy of Argentina which impacts all those he loves. The fact that his father returns to Buenos Aires as Ariel is ready to leave alters the lives of everyone and the manner in which the father and son address the 'lost embrace' is at once heart-warming and humorous.

Much of the joy of this little film comes from the rapid pacing and the style of gradually allowing the viewer to discover all of the idiosyncracies of the characters. The acting is first rate, and camera work is in keeping with the flow of the story, and the musical scoring manages to find the right mixture of each of the elements of the shopkeepers' ethnic backgrounds. it is a magical film - food for the soul! Grady Harp, November 07

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must see, February 8, 2006

By 

M. Brusa "medaly" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lost Embrace (DVD)

This is a very unusual movie. Filmed in a loose hand held camera style, it conveys, for those of us who have experienced it, the feeling of daily life in Buenos Aires, in the post 2001 crisis, like nothing I have ever seen. The story, at first glance, might appear to be simple and sketchy. A second look does reveal a complex web of relationships and attitudes towards the immigrant/emigrant experience and towards the unexpected problems it places on the concept of personal identity. The story, told from the point of view of Ariel, the youngest member of the Makaroff family, chronicles the story of three generations of that family. In the end, the story stands as a chronicle of the immigrant experience (in Argentina, and also elsewhere) The movie becomes a pandora's box where the new immigrants and the old immigrants co-exist in an often unchartered territory. My favorite character is the grandmother, magnificently portrayed by the yiddish singer Rosita Londner. My favorite quote from the movie is the rabbi's definition of "grandchildren" (and I will not spoil it for you). Despite appearances, this movie is profound and complex. Multiple viewings, absolutely worth the time and effort in my opinion, will reveal unexpected layers upon layers of meanings previously missed. The jewish theme that permeates the story, ultimately becomes a universal story, for this is the story of those who come from abroad, of those who adopt the new home as theirs, of those who cannot return to a world that no longer exists and, ultimately, of those who are desperately trying to leave in contrast with those who, having left, return to re-establish the lost ties of family and friendships. Throughout all the turmoil, and sometimes comedic response to the crisis, the constant movement and flux of the characters is mirrored in the unstable, unsteady, hand-held camera style, which, in my opinion, was an excellent choice on the part of the director. Form, in this movie, seems to be constantly subordinated to content. In this way, every element of the movie becomes a channel through which meaning is constantly reinforced and complemented. No matter why you watch this movie -content or form. In the end, you will find in it something to ponder about well after the credits have run.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars At the Small Corner of the World: Pleasing Small Drama from Argentina, February 8, 2006

By 

Tsuyoshi (Kyoto, Japan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lost Embrace (DVD)

Shot with a hand-held camera, `Lost Embrace' (`El Abrazo Partido') is about a small world in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the world seen from one young male Ariel (Daniel Hendler) whose mother has a lingerie shop in the `galleria,' small-sized shopping center in downtown. You meet colorful people there - Joseph, Ariel's brother who runs grocery store; Rita, sexy internet café manager who comes to Ariel's shop and `tries on' the merchandize there, and Osvaldo, who is so `obscure' that nobody notices he is there.

But the film is in fact about Ariel himself, whose father left him and went to Israel while he was very young. (Like Woody Allen film, Ariel's Jewish roots play a significant role). Though Ariel's father sometimes calls his mother from Israel, Ariel has never met him in person. And probably he doesn't want to, for Ariel wants to get a Polish nationality in order to get out of this country and live in Europe.

This small Argentine film might not appeal to you if you're waiting for twists and turns in the plot. Nothing big happens in `Lost Embrace.' Though, in his frequent voiceover, Ariel says he is going to leave the country, his brother (and we) know that he lacks the will to really do so, and perhaps no character want to leave this galleria, the comfortable corner in the wide world the time has forgotten. Even when some secrets are revealed, Ariel never screams or cries. We know he is deeply frustrated at the way he lives his aimless life, and no doubt he is feeling his pains somewhere in his heart, but he is kind of a character who would keep running in pain, instead of crying.

I for one liked the characters and several episodes about themselves - such as Ariel's conversations with Korean shopkeepers, or the songs that his grandmother sings - but I also prefer more dynamic story with emotional power. There is story, emotion and power in `Lost Embrace' but they are often shown as if seen from the observer's viewpoint. Director Daniel Burman is a compassionate and careful observer, and he lets us feel the changes happening in Ariel, but the changes are presented in a subtle way, and you have to be careful to find them out.

`Lost Embrace' is not a film for everybody. It is not about famous people or beautiful landscape. Though there is a story about a father-son relation, it is shown in a more realistic way, not in a soap-opera fashion. That is exactly the charm of this small film, and the small world in downtown Argentina it depicts.