Kept and Dreamless, The Custodian

Tourists adore Argentina for its juicy steaks and soaring mountains, but it’s easy to forget what a complex and unsettled recent history the country has had. The severe fiscal crisis of the 1990s is at the heart of Kept and Dreamless, the first of a double feature of recent Argentine films screening today at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In the colorful comedic melodrama, made in 2005, a nine-year-old girl must put up with both her drug-addicted mother and her reeling homeland. On its heels comes The Custodian, a debut film from director Rodrigo Moreno, who relies on a steady, fixed-frame technique to tell the story of a lonely bodyguard whose life is defined by his work: watching, waiting and hating.

Kept and Dreamless screens at 7 p.m. followed by The Custodian at 9:15 p.m. today and tomorrow. 1001 Bissonnet. For information, call 713-639-7515 or visit www.mfah.org/film. $7.
Fri., July 18, 7 p.m.; Sat., July 19, 7 p.m., 2008