Could be this, the best of all times?
Is this the one that is describing the Argentinean culture at its best?
There are of course other very good Argentinean movies, and more to come, but I always will think that this black-humor film is the summary of the AR reality.
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It is hard to say if this is the best of all times. For sure it is one of the best and no doubt it describes quite well the typical argentinean middle-class family of italian-heritage (surnames such as Buscarolli de Musicardi).
However, I do not think this is the best because of its black humor, which has realy a lot and is hilarious, but for the underlying criticism it raises.
Argentinean society is plenty of predjudices which are correctly addressed in the movie. China Zorrilla's character (Elvira) says about the hungarian: "why don't they stay in their country, this hunger-dying comunists". Or she quietly says "what are we? Jews without any religious beliefs, or wild blacks?". As an Argentinean-Spanish native speaker it's easy to pick the kind of discriminatory speech against the "new inmigrants" as opposed to the "old inmigrants" (which they are descendents of).
Not to say that the central criticism of the movie is the hard grasping question of what do we do with our elders when they are not longer useful to our society, a problematic that excedes the purely argentinean. In fact, when Mama Cora reappears, the joy of having her again is quicly replaced by the urge to send her out, and they sent her to the hungarian funeral, who doubtfully be the same that she had new as a young one (in the words of Elvira: "but Mama Cora, who can doubt it??").
Among the many transversal themes it has, the movie contains bold criticisms to the society classes, to the conections with people in power as a way to achieve goals, unfaithfulness, relashionship between mother-in-law and sister-in-law, etc.
So, I think this movie is probably one of the best argentine movies which hits many social problems at the same time.