theodore h
Magic realism in the South American tradition.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I'd heard nothing at all about this film; picked it because the description sounded interesting. Within the first few minutes, though, I began sinking into the luxuriant pleasure of watching good art. Whether the film is intended as political cinema, as one reviewer claims, or won't get beyond the festival circuit matters little to me. This is a piece of art.
First, the color and shadow saturated sets, both indoor and outdoor, like photos or artwork, lush. It is possible to sink deeply into them, to study them as you might study at painting on a museum wall. I have profound respect for the combination of cinematographer, set designers and lighting directors, whose work in combination creates the often unconscious visual tapestry behind the film's action or story.
Second, the writing. I had to watch it with subtitles - the original is in Spanish - so I lost some of the verbal music, and no doubt some of the more intricate meanings, but the written language was profound and mysterious, truly like verses slowly spoken. The silences between the characters was equally compelling, and maybe more meaningful.
Third, there was no camera work of any kind beyond setting the original position. In other words, as far as I can remember, the camera never panned, and never zoomed. The action took place within the frame, and characters walked into and out of that frame, sometimes very slowly, and from great distances. The film had a strange quiet mystery, and it was only after I became aware of this limited camera work that I realized how meditative and observational I became while letting my eyes roam over these paintings with movement.
Fourth, the soundscape. While the dialogue is sometimes sparse, the film has a rich mixture of sounds, all recorded in their minutest detail, so that each shift of gravel can be heard, each step, the sound of water, opening and closing doors. Even while the camera is yards away filming a wider vista, the sounds bring us into the immediate space occupied by the characters: we can hear every scrape of a shovel, every grunt of effort, every panting breath close and distinct. I think this film might be worth watching with eyes closed.
Fifth, the strange, often inexplicable surreal aspects to the 'narrative.' At one point a singing whale glides through the watery sky; at another, a sleepy clerk in his sub-basement office searches his brain for additional bureaucratic obstacles while surrounded by leaning towers of books and papers. On his desk sit a dozen ticking alarm clocks. When one goes off, he searches for it, turns it off, then wonders what it was for. Best of all is a set of trips into the dark catacombs holding endless shelves of records for the inhabitants of the cemetery, explorable only by candle, and best if attached to a string to find your way back. This is a lovely homage to Portuguese Nobelist Jose Saramago's book 'All the Names' (which by chance I recently read), both presenting a comic Kafkaesque nightmare in the sort of inefficiencies only possible in an overly regulated bureaucracy managed by sinecures; clerks whose gatekeeping capacities transcend St. Peter's.
Finally, there is the old man himself, an unforgettable portrait of humility and endurance, that archetype of the loyal adherent to the duties of the job, even when the job has disappeared. His face, his gait, his silences and stories. The way in which he looks at things, the way in which he mops the floor, the lovely gentle scene in which he washes the face and arms of a young woman, anonymous.
See it, if you can.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/15/23
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