I know that I'm about to bash a movie that many consider a classic of Argentinian cinema, but hey, controversy rules! So, here it goes.<br /><br />In 1986, Argentinian director Eliseo Subiela and Argentinian stars Hugo Soto and Lorenzo Quinteros did what we can call a "predecessor" to the book by Gene Brewer, K-PAX, witch originated Iain Softley's homonym major hit and masterpiece on the big screen with Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. However, any resemblance on this Argentinian piece with Brewer's book were declared like purely coincidental, as the author declared having knowledge about the movie five years after writing his book.<br /><br />Coincidence or not, we'll never know for sure. What I know for sure is that K-PAX is far superior than the movie from 1986 in so many senses.<br /><br />To start with, "Man Facing Southeast" (Hombre Mirando Al Sudeste) is a very cold movie. Totally absent of feelings, with cold thematic, script and a very bad acting, and the absence of charisma from the characters makes it even worse. As this is a low budget movie for the age it was made, we can live with the simplistic scenarios, edition and the absence of a mystical and "out of this world"-like climax (as we see in K-PAX), not counting that it was filmed in a third world country. No problem with those things.<br /><br />The movie sometimes tries to explain too much things, and looses it's narrative focus, it's not philosophical in any sense. The "in off" narration bothers as well, and shows itself unnecessary in most part of the film. The movie have a boring rhythm. Not because it's slow. "2001 - A Space Odissey" is an extremely slow movie but keeps itself daring and interesting all the time. The problem with "Man Facing Southeast" is that the script looses itself many times in situations that wasn't need to be so detailed. It seems like Subiela wants to regurgitate every information in people's head, not giving space for us to think. The movie looses it's focus so much making people feels so bored and tired that you'll wish it to end in the middle of the film.<br /><br />As I said before, the acting is poor, very poor. None of the actors convince us in their roles, they act like they don't care. Jeff Bridges was bureaucratic in K-PAX, but still convincing, he was like "hey, I'm so glad I got this role, I'm really enjoying being here!" Also, the movie have unnecessary and utterly disgusting sequences, like the ones showing pieces of corpses in laboratory and naked corpses being transported. There's also a sex scene that I believe they did just to show what actress Inés Vernengo really have under the dress... you know what I mean. Very tiny ones there was no need of that! Things that totally breaks the feel of the story and rips the rest of the good ideas.<br /><br />The story, by the way, is really similar to K-PAX. Man that appears from nowhere and is sent to a clinic where a psychiatric tries to convince him he's not an alien. As the story goes, we are presented to the past of Rantes, where details of his life are revealed, showing who he really are, witch leads us to the revelations in the end of the tape. Rantes will slowly gain the sympathy from the crazies of the clinic that here, works only as mere supporting cast, with no voice or importance like in K-PAX.<br /><br />Of course there are positive points in this movie: It ends; it have some nice criticism about future of mankind and the paths that man are taking; the thematic is very interesting, although it's poorly developed; for a low budget movie, it's well produced for that age; the sequence where Rantes conducts an entire orchestra is wonderful; the doctor plays sax very well; the soundtrack of the movie is also brilliant; and it makes me wanting to watch K-PAX all over again.<br /><br />Bottom line: it's a movie that is worth watching just in case you're curious to see more about Argentinian movies. Maybe some masterpiece like The Motorcycle Diaries could be a better example of what Latin cinema is capable of. So, if you want to watch a better movie with the same plot as Man Facing Southeast, catch a beam of light and watch K-PAX. You'll thank me later.