This is a very positive film indeed, very enjoyable, very entertaining.

Daniel Burman brings Argentinian society to life – with a special angle since his family is Jewish and migrated to Argentina at the end of World War II. Family Law is somewhat autobiographical – and the hero’s little boy is played, charmingly and naturalistically, by Burman’s own son.

Family Law sounds far too legal and cold a title for this film. It opens with the central figure, a fairly buttoned-up type (literally since he even wears his suit and tie sometimes to bed) who lectures, quite interestingly in law and justice at the university. He is talking, not about himself, but his father’s daily routine in life and in his legal practice. He is in admiration of his father – and the audience grows in sharing this admiration. His father is a good man.

The hero himself is not such a bad man either, but overshadowed in his own mind and behaviour by this father. He marries, has a little boy, continues his work but fails to understand so much of his father’s life and attitudes, despite his father’s encouraging him to do so, until it is too late. Daniel Hendler won a Silver Bear in Berlin for Burman’s previous film. He is completely credible here as is Arturo Goetz as the father.
Burman is showing three generations of a family, relationships between fathers and sons. There are tensions and misunderstandings but also love and hope. Winner of the SIGNIS award in Mar del Plata, 2006.

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