An invitation to 'Lake Tahoe'

“Lake Tahoe” really has nothing to do with the familiar Nevada location.  On the other hand, nothing in this film is predictable, so that title fits it just fine.

“Lake Tahoe” will be shown tonight at 7 in the Historic Yuma Theatre, 254 S. Main St.; admission $5. The screening, part of Arizona Western College's “Thursdays at the Theatre” (formerly the Sun Cinema Series), includes an independent short film and a hosted discussion. Language is Spanish with English subtitles. Run time of the feature is 81 minutes.

A beach menagerie

As the curtain goes up on an unidentified tropical Third World locale, a red Nissan sedan bumps into a telephone pole on a deserted street at the outskirts of town. The car won't start again, so the driver, a lanky late-teen, gets out and heads off to look for a mechanic.

When he finally finds one, the old guy thinks the youth has come to rob the place and interrogates him while the resident pitbull keeps him pinned to a chair. The proprietor finally believes the boy - Juan by name - but falls asleep in his hammock before he can offer any help, and Juan has to go off on another quest for the replacement part.

At the parts store, while Juan is waiting for the guy who “knows about that,” he gets to hang out with the clerk, a free-spirited girl with aspirations of singing in a punk band. The parts expert, a Bruce Lee wannabe, finally shows up and takes Juan out to the car on the back of his bike.

That's the beginning of a full day that involves several round trips out to the car and back into town, with a number of new quirky characters thrown in. Juan also will stop by his own house a few times to talk to his younger brother, who sits alone in a tent all day in the sandy yard. He goes inside to check on his mom, too, who lies smoking in the bathtub with all her photo albums spread around the room.

Clearly something is wrong on the homefront.

Tropical minimalism

Second-time director Fernando Eimbcke has been called “a master of tone.” His world is not quite the same one we all live in from day to day. Other than the main characters, there are few passers-by on these Mexican streets. Events are generally unexplained and never quite logical, and no one seems quite motivated by conventional adult responsibilities.

But mainly the eccentric mood is created by the minimalist cinematic style - very much reminiscent of the films of American director Jim Jarmusch (“Stranger Than Paradise”).

The extreme wide-screen shots, punctuated by long moments of black, are static and tend to be centered and square to some interesting building or some odd street. Dialogue is sparse and music pretty much nonexistent. Still, the choice of locales and the brightness of the colors are visually appealing.

This charming independent film, nurtured in the Sundance Institute, might be classified as another existential tragicomedy in the tradition of the mid-20th Century “Theater of the Absurd.” These characters might not be waiting for Godot, but no doubt they could use a bit of divine intervention.