[Image: A scene from Moebius, spotted via meanwhile…].
meanwhile… points us to a film called Moebius, “in which a train on the subway system of Buenos Aires suddenly disappears and a mathematician is called in to examine the mystery.”
The mathematician soon discovers, as another site explains, “that the subway system, with its countless add-ons over the years, has become so incredibly labyrinthine [that] a gigantic moebius strip was unwittingly created which the missing train is now trapped on.”
The film’s director, Gustavo Mosquera, goes through the political implications of the subway’s “disappeared” riders in this conversation, published in 1998.
Anyone out there seen it? The film, that is (not the missing subway train)?
(Vaguely related: Portable entryways and Urban Knot Theory).
very great film…
A postal of retro-future post-apocaliptic Buenos Aires
The A.J. Deutsch short story (“A Subway Named Moebius”) is a classic – read it if you get a chance.
It might be a nice double-feature with ‘The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3,’ which stars Walter Matthau’s tie.
I saw the film years ago at the Singapore Film Festival and the director Gustavo Mosquera gave a short and humble introduction to the film. Switching between talking about the political suggestions of the film and the technical aspects of how it was being filmed (apparently with a hand cranked 35mm film camera), Mosquera drew a image of how he saw film-making as a kind of aesthetic gesture encoded in a socio-political context of a nation’s deep secrets. Very very worth watching, esp. if you are interested in films from South America that explores the emotive side of film noir.
link to a torrent file is available here: http://torrentreview.net/node/19
One interesting thing to point is that it was done mostly by university students, and even though they had a really tight budget, they could produce this film remarkably. It’s also available on the emule network, but I’m not sure if you will be able to find subtitles for it.
OMG! I saw this film years ago and I loved it. Recently I looked for some information about the film but I didn’t find almost anything. I saw the film in Madrid, in a very minoritary festival. I think the story is based on a short tale by Julio Cortazar and was filmed by college students. I’m glad you liked it too, I usually read your blog but I never commented before. Thank you so much for this post!!
Is that Deutsch one on the Boston subway? I remember reading an SF story MAAAAAAAAAAAANY years ago with exactly this problem on the Boston subway. Only I thought it was Asimov that wrote it. Maybe I’m getting it confused with Heinlein’s (?) And He Built a Crooked House.
Hey – Thanks for all the links, and the torrent file, and everything – Much appreciated!
After much Googling and wishing I’d tried a bit harder to learn Spanish; you can download a subtitle file to go with the torrents from http://subscene.com/62691/subtitlefilm.aspx
Phew. Excellent, excellent film.
You can see the trailer (non-subtitled) on YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3wzNdEGlPw
I second the “Subway Named Moebius” short-story comment.
awesome film!
Where can I find the movie?
I tried BitTurrent, but the movie is no longer there
Gracias!
It’s part of a great collection of stories from an anthology “fantasia mathematica”