Sightlines · reception

How Sidewalls was received

2011 · Gustavo Taretto · Sidewalls on Sightlines

The arc

A quiet Berlinale Panorama premiere in 2011 that never got a big release, it's aged into a word-of-mouth treasure — passed hand to hand online as the definitive 'lonely in a big city' movie, especially beloved among Spanish-speaking film Twitter and Letterboxd.

What’s debated

The perennial split: is it a genuinely tender portrait of urban isolation, or peak twee — an Argentine Amélie/(500) Days cocktail whose narration does too much of the feeling for you?

Its footprint

The Where's Wally motif — two people hidden in plain sight in the same crowded city — is the image everyone keeps, and the opening monologue about Buenos Aires' mismatched, badly-planned buildings mirroring the people inside them gets quoted in reviews constantly.

Where it stands

A cult comfort film and Letterboxd sleeper favorite — the 'if you liked this, you're my kind of person' recommendation of Argentine cinema rather than an official-canon entry.

Did you know? Taretto expanded it from his own award-winning 2005 short of the same name, keeping the story and even his lead actor Javier Drolas — but recasting Mariana, with Spain's Pilar López de Ayala stepping into the feature.

Named by the director

• Manhattan (1979) — Taretto wears the influence openly — Sidewalls directly incorporates and pays homage to Allen's neurotic-singles-in-the-city classic.
• Woody Allen — The director openly acknowledged Allen's city-as-romantic-neurosis cinema as the model for his own Buenos Aires version.