The Novelist's Film (2022)

Direction: Hong Sang-soo
Country: South Korea

Adopting the same naturalistic and conversational style he's been accustoming us, the prolific South Korean writer-director Hong Sang-soo delivers a mildly entertaining film orchestrated with discreet virtuosity. Centered on artists facing creative blocks and dealing with short period hiatus in their careers, The Novelist’s Film is steady in mood, uneven in the rhythm, and vulnerable as a story.

At the very center, we have a celebrated novelist, Kim Junhee (Lee Hye-yeong), who leaves Seoul to visit an old friend in the suburbs. In her way back, she crosses paths with a director (Kwon Hae-hyo) with whom she almost worked in the past, and a trendy actress (the director’s wife Kim Min-hee), whose work she admires. Both think she has a lot of charisma, but she decides to discard the former and make a short film with the latter. 

It’s a movie in love with words and human connection, pulling subtle punches with a cerebral pragmatism and purity of tone. Sang-soo’s efforts result in a contemplative film that, stuttering at times, also plays too much with coincidences. Despite the visible exaggeration at this level, a worn-out drinking scene, and nothing newfangled to produce a spark, we let ourselves be carried away by the charm of the protagonists.

The passable The Novelist’s Film doesn't transcend the director’s intimidating filmography, whose previous entry, In Front of Your Face, is a stronger bet.

Armageddon Time (2022)

Direction: James Gray
Country: USA 

Armageddon Time is a simple coming-of-age tale that addresses venomous social injustices and overwhelming gaps in the American society. Even tamer than director James Gray’s previous New York stories - We Own the Night (2017) and Two Lovers (2018) - and dealing with a finale that is not particularly surprising, the film, set in 1981 Queens, is definitely marked by enough evocative power. It’s an entertaining, down-to-earth vehicle that, holding nothing back, is more focused in honesty than in any desire to impress. 

The film’s title may suggest another sci-fi incursion like Ad Astra (2019) or another plunge into adventure like The Lost City of Z (2016). Instead, Gray mounts a period drama film inspired by his own childhood experiences. The personification of himself at childhood comes as Paul Graff, a Jewish-American boy who wants to be an artist. Young actor Banks Repeta gives the character life, showcasing the struggle of a kid against racial discrimination in the family and at school, a fact that is further intensified when he is caught smoking weed in the school’s bathroom with his rebellious black friend, Johnny Davis (Jaylin Webb).

Uncomfortable and disoriented, he deals with disillusionment with more boldness than fear, not thanks to his caring mother (Anne Hathaway) nor his volatile father (Jeremy Strong), but with the help of his beloved grandfather Aaron (Anthony Hopkins), whose wise advice he listens attentively. The idea that’s hard to fight, but one can never give in is taken by Paul with hope and fortitude. 

A careful stylization by cinematographer Darius Khondji, who had worked with the director in The Immigrant (2013), creates a particular tonality inspired by Marcel Proust’s classic In Search of Lost Time. Gray put his passion into staging his painfully vivid memoirs, creating a nuanced, delicate film with a strong anti-racist message.

Tár (2022)

Direction: Todd Field
Country: USA 

Earnestly told and entirely convincing, Tár is a masterstroke by Todd Field, a director always on the lookout to take the viewer into breathtaking emotional whirlwinds. Inactive since 2006 (after masterful dramas such as In the Bedroom and Little Children), Field will make people wondering if the film was actually inspired by real events, such is the precision of detail and exactitude of information - the film starts with a marvelous interview with the New Yorker’s journalist Adam Gopnik, in which we learn Tar’s considerations about time in music, interpretation and feelings.

Elegantly mounted, his tale of intrigue works like a thriller, presenting us an intelligent post-pandemic journey, whose protagonist - an interesting yet desensitized avant-garde female conductor seriously inspired by Gustav Mahler - exerts abuse of power, tricky manipulation and favoritism. It's bursting with brainy tension, machinations and emotional turmoils, grabbing us from start to finish. The main reason for the film success is Cate Blanchett, who delivers a rock-solid, high-class performance, illuminating every single shot with her acting prowess. For now, I couldn’t think of any other actress than her for the Oscars. 

Just like the music by Hildur Guðnadóttir, the cruel learning story penetrates our soul with entrancing captivation and ravishing violence. The overall story arc is realistically complemented with surgical dialogues and striking visual compositions in a timeless contemporary drama to be remembered for its immense qualities. One can finally rejoice with what have been missing from the movies these days: authenticity and intelligence.

The Good Nurse (2022)

Direction: Tobias Lindholm
Country: USA 

The thrillers of Danish director Tobias Lindholm got famous for their glows and agitation, but The Good Nurse, a harrowing true story abated by banality, doesn't hold up as well as you'd expect. Screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns worked from the 2013 true crime book by Charles Graeber. 

The film boasts Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne in the center roles. She is Amy Loughren, a proficient if tired nurse and single mother of two, who has been struggling with cardiomyopathy crisis. He is Charlie Cullen, a self-assured and helpful nurse who worked in nine hospitals over 16 years, leaving a trace of silent death behind him. When he arrives at the ICU of Parkfield Memorial Hospital in New Jersey, it was a huge relieve for Amy, who couldn’t guess her patients would be in danger. A mysterious death leads to an investigation by two relentless detectives (played by Nnamdi Asomugha and Noah Emmerich), leaving them stuck in a web of lies, cynicism and cover-ups. 

Rather than shocked or terrified, you follow the course of events fairly intrigued and sometimes amused. But this is not enough. This monotonous crime drama awkwardly and stiffly arrives at its revelations, managing little more than a gesture toward untying inextricable knots. It’s weak as a thriller and particularly disappointing following Lindholm's exceptional past work (A Hijacking, 2012; A War, 2015).

Quite simply: this is something you could read about in a few paragraphs, and the film fails to present any type of dilemma during its passionless narrative. Cullen’s character should have been better explored and details of his personal life revealed to help us gain some interest and overcome indifference.

Anatolian Leopard (2022)

Direction: Emre Kayis
Country: Turkey 

Anatolian Leopard is a resolute, cerebral and languid drama written and directed by Emre Kayis, who successfully captures the inward turmoil of a solitary zoo director struggling to find his place in a corrupted society. 

After more than two decades of hard work and dedication, the pensive director Fikret Ozturk (Ugur Polat) is confronted with the closure of the Turkey’s oldest zoo. In order to avoid that, and stop the privatization process, he fakes the escape of the indigenous Anatolian leopard, a symbol of the country and an endangered species. On that ground, he counts on the help of his loyal officer, Gamze (Ipek Türktan), whose dream is to be a flight attendant. 

Polat’s performance is believable and his facial expressions show all the frustration, debility and ennui in the face of the system’s machination. His character internalizes all these feelings with a sense of disconnection from everything. Fearing extinction himself, Fikret is fed up with posing for pretentious crooks and tycoons who soak up everything he built. 

Even not taking huge directing risks, Kayis does not hesitate to use a suitable composure in the shots, creating a genuinely entrancing tale of disappointment with a sense of tragic inevitability. The final result may seem austere for ordinary mortals, but the film will be gratifying for movie buffs who don’t get scared with the unrelenting bleakness (with subtle touches of humor) of an apt metaphor.

Our Father, The Devil (2022)

Direction: Ellie Foumbi
Country: France

Fronted by Bissau-Guinean-Belgian actress Babetida Sadjo (And Breathe Normally, 2018) and Souléymane Sy Savané (Goodbye Solo, 2008), who was born in Ivory Coast, Our Father, the Devil is an intense and keyed up drama thriller that says a lot about trauma, hatred, repent, forgiveness, and a nearly uncontrollable thirst for revenge. The feature debut from Cameroon-born, New York-based writer-director Ellie Foumbi, who gives the film a real narrative breath, is set in Luchon, a small southwestern French town located in the Pyrenees, on the border with Spain.

The plot follows Maria Cissé (Sadjo), an African refugee turned chef who got heavily traumatized at the age 12 when her Guinea village was attacked by merciless, barbaric men. One day, in a normal day at the retirement home where she's employed, a charismatic Catholic priest, Father Patrick (Savané), inspires everyone but her while talking about imperfections, atonement, and forgiveness. The problem is that she recognizes him as being one of the aggressors, and her thirst for revenge becomes bigger than anything. 

Oozing some darkness, this is a well-acted film with a message that, fortunately, doesn't have to preach to be effective. Having its blind-by-rage protagonist descending to hell and coming back, the story might not affirm anything new, but forces viewers to meditate on the topic, as it is presented with an energy and conviction that questions our own responsibility to protect victims, condemn aggressors, but also give them a second chance if deserved.

Although a little cold sometimes, Our Father, the Devil imposes itself as an esteemed first work where the thought of forgiveness made me feel good.

Return to Dust (2022)

Direction: Li Ruijun
Country: China

Return to Dust expresses a trenchant social realism that, being beautiful to the eye, is caustic to the intellect. It depicts the story of two humble and lonely human beings who find some happiness together after years of hard work and exclusion. Following an arranged marriage, the generous farmer Ma Youtie (Wu Renlin, a non-professional actor) and the bashful Cao Guiying (star actress Hai Qing) manage to get along pretty well, proving the inhabitants of their rural Gansu village that they can do much more than what is expected from them. 

This is a gently persuasive tale that reflects the Chinese reality, where the meaninglessness of one’s existence surpasses any individual attempt to stand out. It’s also about the will to change and the right to dream in a country that shows little compassion. 

Writer-director Li Ruijun presents everything with bouts of languishing moments that never lose sense or direction. Sometimes they say more than what they show. There’s powerful drama and rustic lyricism in these characters’ journey, and we root for them, aware of their honesty, simplicity, and determination. Return to Dust is a sober, subtle, and moving experience that finds its aesthetic identity, satisfying both as a life tale that tries to reconnect people with humanity and as a tribute to the vitality and endurance of Chinese peasant culture in adverse times.

Costa Brava, Lebanon (2022)

Direction: Mounia Akl
Country: Lebanon 

Mounia Akl administers an elegant direction in her feature debut, Costa Brava, Lebanon, having co-written the script with Clara Roquet (10,000 Km, 2014; Libertad, 2021). She put together a strong cast with Saleh Bakri and Nadine Labaki in the center roles along with the young actresses Nadia Charbel and Seana Restom, the latter being a wonderful revelation in her first screen appearance. 

This observant, political, and human Lebanese drama film, whose title refers to a once beautiful beach turned dumping near Beirut, is set in the near future and deals with the Lebanese waste crisis. The hot-tempered Walid (Bakri) and the singer/songwriter Soraya (Labaki), both former activists, abandoned Beirut eight years ago to live secluded in the mountains with their two daughters - the superstitious nine-year-old Rim (Restom), and the 17-year-old Tala (Charbel), who's in full sexual awakening - and Walid’s terminally ill mother, Zeina (Liliane Chacar Khoury). Their peace is suddenly disrupted when the government announces an ecological landfill adjacent to their house. An ongoing tension installs within the family as the surroundings deteriorate and their health is threatened. 

Costa Brava is a scathing story of resistance to elusive governmental machinations as well as a story of tiredness and ultimately liberation. It works both as a news bulletin, a coming-of-age disenchantment, and a shout of protest treated in a sober mode. At times, we can almost sense the toxicity that suffocates and embitters the household. To flee or to resist? That’s the dilemma faced by self-imposed ‘prisoners’ in another tough wrestle with a corrupt political system.

Werewolf by Night (2022)

Direction: Michael Giacchino
Country: USA 

Score composer Michael Giacchino (Ratatouille, 2007; Star Trek, 2009) directs an arresting 50-minute television special that's often unsettling and adventurous. If you dig offbeat werewolf stories and arthouse films, then you’ll be begging for more. The teleplay by Heather Quinn and Peter Cameron is based on the Marvel Comics of the same name.

Jack Russell (Gael Garcia Bernal), a monster hunter doomed to be a werewolf, is summoned by Ulyses Bloodstone’s widow, Verussa (Harriet Sansom Harris), to compete against rivals - including the deceased’s estranged daughter Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly)  and the merciless Jovan (Kirk Thatcher) - in a mission to determined who will be the next leader in the crusade against the evil monsters. 

Thoroughly staged with unpredictable alliances and implacable attacks, Werewolf by Night is by turns violent and comedic. The option for black and white was appropriate, serving to enhance the imposing photography by Zoë White (The Handmaid’s Tale series, 2018-19). An atypical surprise that should be further developed to fully satisfy.

Triangle of Sadness (2022)

Direction: Ruben Östlund
Country: France / Sweden / other

Palme D’Or winner, Triangle of Sadness, is a step down in the Swedish director Ruben Östlund's filmography, which includes Force Majeure (2014) and The Square (2017). This heavy-handed, neoliberal satirical comedy about inequality and class gaps is his first English-language film, and comes pelted with dark humor and irony. However, after a great start, it ended up grubby and silly. 

In the first chapter, we are introduced to models and influencers, Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), who show a bit of their personalities. On the passable second section, they embark on a luxury cruise marked by a captain’s dinner that won’t let you escape the nauseating wobbliness of repetition. Yet, the best sequences for me involved the interaction between a Russian capitalist who sells fertilizer (Zlatko Burić) and the alcoholic Marxist captain (Woody Harrelson) who despises each and every wealthy passenger on board. Some great dialogues are nearly absurdist at this phase. The third and last chapter is a complete disaster, sinking down the whole film in a blink of an eye. 

If we're making picks for the most eccentric and anarchic flicks of the year, my enthusiastic vote goes to the hyped up Triangle of Sadness, even if the final result is not particularly satisfying. In this case, Östlund wasn’t smart enough to take some possible good ideas to better conclusions, preferring a cinema that is coarse, drastic and with no consequence. It can be funny at times, though.

Amsterdam (2022)

Direction: David O. Russell
Country: USA 

Seven years after the dispensable Joy, writer-director-producer David O. Russell releases Amsterdam, assembling an impressive ensemble cast that nothing could do to make his period comedy thriller less underwhelming. The story is based on the Business Plot, a 1933 political conspiracy that intended to install a dictator in the place of the American president Franklin D. Roosevelt. The topic still applies to our days since constant threats to democracy hover over our heads for some time, but as a film, Amsterdam is a sketchy exercise where every move turns out mediocre, if not downright silly. It never feels authentic.

Working with the director for the third time (following the more successful American Hustle and The Fighter), Christan Bale is Burt Berendsen, a doctor scarred by the war who's not afraid to dive into experimental medicine. He and his former war buddy turned lawyer, Harold Woodman (John David Washington), will have to clear their name when accused of a crime they didn’t commit. For that matter, they have the help of nurse Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie) and a couple of spies (Mike Myers, Michael Shannon). 

Too busy crushing his excellent actors under the period mise-en-scène, Russell doesn’t seem to know how to make this story interesting, setting a trap for himself. Amsterdam completely collapses both as comedy and thriller, bogged down in apathy and prosaic temperance. The amazing actors, completely drowned in automatism and formal discipline, are unable to show off feelings. Besides protracted, the film remains too derivative, superficial, and humorless to produce an acceptable outcome.

Dos Estaciones (2022)

Direction: Juan Pablo Gonzalez
Country: Mexico 

Juan Pablo Gonzalez's feature length debut, Dos Estaciones, is set in Atotonilco El Alto, Jalisco, where the California-based writer-director was born and raised. Inspired by members of his own family in direct relation with the tequila business, Gonzalez presents a realistic rural drama and contemporary portrait of the region with a strong female character at the center. 

The modern machinery and the traditional Mexican village almost strive to coexist together, in a story about an adamant tequila rancher, Maria Garcia (Teresa Sánchez), who having inherited the factory Dos Estaciones from previous generations, managed to modernize it and thrive economically. But all of a sudden, her lifetime work collapses in front of her eyes. It’s not just the fierce competition and the pesticide-resistant plague that threatens the agave fields; it’s also the unannounced weather-related challenges that sometimes require expensive remedial measures. 

Adopting a man-like posture and exhibiting a nearly military look, Sanchez is impeccable as this once successful entrepreneur who gained the respect of the villagers. In the last attempt to save her factory, Maria hires Rafaela (Rafaela Fuentes), an experienced and versatile worker to whom she becomes physically attracted. The focus then briefly shifts to Tatis (Tatín Vera), a local transgender hairdresser whose salon is about to be expanded. 

Dos Estaciones is not flashy nor imposing, but its purpose and meaning rings loud, providing one of those experiences where honesty and heaviness can’t be dissociated. Despite contemplative on occasion, it carries this subtly underlying tension that bites consistently. Because Gonzalez isn't afraid to convey the deep concerns, insecurities and strengths of these women, you immediately know the film is going to give you something. Cinematographer Gerardo Guerra assists him by extracting natural lyricism from the visual compositions.

You Resemble Me (2022)

Direction: Dina Amer
Country: France 

The inaugural shot of You Resemble Me, the unfluctuating feature debut by Egyptian-American writer-director Dina Amer (a former journalist), makes us disquieted about the film’s young character, Hasna (Lorenza Grimaudo). She is based on the real Hasna Ait Boulahcen, labelled Europe's first female suicide bomber by the media in 2015 after getting involved in the Bataclan theater attacks in Paris. The film is fictional, though; a powerful imagination of the events that credits acclaimed filmmakers Spike Lee and Spike Jonze as executive producers. 

Hasna’s childhood has been tough enough as she's treated with a cruelty that’s hard to bear by her unbalanced mother, Amina (Sana Sri). She suffers a deeper blow after being kicked out from home and get separated from her younger sister Mariam (Illona Grimaudo), with whom she’s very attached to. As an adult (Mouna Soualem), while going from disappointment to disappointment with this sense of not belonging, she feels that nothing's left for her but a promise of paradise offered by the Syrian Jihad. 

The director’s depth of feeling in reconstructing Hasna’s terrible teenage years, guilt, and dilemmas deserves praise as well as her clear view and poignant depiction of the subject. Filmed and edited with dynamism, You Resemble Me catches our attention by touching on a number of central conflicts, both internal and external, that has frightening accents of truth.

Argentina 1985 (2022)

Direction: Santiago Mitre
Country: Argentina 

Courtroom drama films about real trials frequently follow typical patterns, and Argentina, 1985 falls into that category without adding great innovations. Working from a script he co-wrote with Mariano Llinás (La Flor, 2018), director Santiago Mitre (Paulina, 2015; The Summit, 2017) adopts that familiar structure but depicts this special chapter in the history of Argentina with a clear focus. However, even carrying considerable information about the harrowing military dictatorship - effective from 1976 to 1983 - and the subsequent Trial of the Juntas in 1985, one can tell it was made with crowd entertainment in mind.

Propelled by Ricardo Darin’s strong performance as the prosecutor Julio Strassera, the national hero who sent the worst fascist commanders to jail for crimes against humanity, the film is carried by an urgent necessity of justice and its rousing pro-democracy message. Strassera used the help of a group of inexperienced yet bold lawyers led by Luis Moreno Ocampo (Peter Lanzani), his right-hand assistant.

Considering the heaviness of the topic, Mitre’s approach is light and doesn’t go beyond most Hollywood-style films. The way the film was conventionally shot curtailed the emotional responses it needed to evoke, and we particularly regret the oversimplification of some aspects in the hard mission of these characters. It’s OK to stop by here, but not so much for what it presents visually or narratively. In summary: an unambitious legal drama that doesn't make the message any less true.

Hinterland (2022)

Direction: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Country: Austria 

Hinterland, a post-war detective thriller set in the early ‘20s, resembles the old classics, but not in the visual department. It was shot with almost surreal images, immersing the viewer into a viscerally distorted world that borrows from the German expressionism’s tonal palette. The film, anchored by a solid performance by Murathan Muslu and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky (The Counterfeiters, 2007), turns into a whodunnit mystery at some point. Although its visual eccentricity might feel dystopically weird for some viewers, this is the kind of story that could be found in the filmographies of Orson Welles and Andrzej Wajda. Yet, I’m pretty convinced the result would be very different, for better.

The story traces the path of Lieutenant Peter Berg (Muslu), a former criminologist made a POW, who returns to Vienna seven years after fighting for the emperor and fatherland against the Russian troops. Berg left his family and his job in the police to go to the battlefield, and everyone blames him for that, including his former colleague Victor Renner (Marc Limpach) and Dr. Theresa Körner (Liv Lisa Fries), a forensic pathologist who will help him solve a spree of brutal murders related to his military unit. 

This is a gut-wrenching look at the depressing and vicious ramifications of war. The suspense increases gradually and new discoveries are unveiled at every step of the investigation, culminating with a decent twist.

To Leslie (2022)

Direction: Michael Morris
Country: USA 

To Leslie, the in-your-face first feature film by director Michael Morris, is based on true events, playing as a country ballad with a taste of whiskey and the venom of judgmental Christians. But it’s also tender and human in many ways.

Suffused with equal parts heaviness and compassion, this surprisingly unsparing drama explores the torments of the title character, an alcoholic single mother from Texas who ends up on the streets six years after winning the lottery. 

The film boasts substantial pleasures, largely on account of British actress Andrea Riseborough (Birdman, 2014; Oblivion, 2013), who, with authenticity, delivers a superlative, hard-to-forget performance. She’s strongly backed by actor/comedian Marc Maron as the kindhearted employer that gives her a chance to live again and regain a long lost self-confidence.

With demonstrative humanity, this is not the kind of trip you'll return to multiple times, but one that you look back on fondly.

The Cathedral (2022)

Direction: Ricky D’Ambrose
Country: USA 

In Ricky D’Ambrose’s third feature, The Cathedral, the life of Jesse Damrosch (Robert Levey II and William Bednar-Carter) and his parents - Richard (Brian d'Arcy James) and Lydia (Monica Barbaro) - expand to other members of the family via a sequential thread of fragmental portraits that compose a bigger picture. The singular, well interpreted story of the family spans two decades, and is presented with a retro look and consonant decor. 

Processed with botches of melancholy (there’s this sense of solitude, fear and bashfulness that shrouds the central character), the film is not exactly disarming but bestowed with just enough charm and pathos to make us interested. Hostilities, emotional pugnacity, unforgiveness, and cruelty evoke a wide spectrum of possible family issues that are immediately relatable. 

D’Ambrose’s style is less detailed and conversational than Richard Linklater's but more expeditious. The Cathedral is by no means incompetent; it's just almost pathologically elementary, floating with nostalgia and a few painful moments that could go even further in its narrative purpose. David Lowery (A Ghost Story, 2017; The Green Knight, 2021) is credited as executive producer.

Brighton 4th (2022)

Direction: Levan Koguashvili
Country: Georgia

As a tightly controlled, low-boil send-up from Georgia, Brighton 4th partly succeeds, being an often amusing, sometimes off-kilter and ultimately elegiac immigrant song written and directed by Levan Koguashvili from a screenplay by Boris Frumin.

The story is about a good-natured man and former wrestling champion, Kakhi (Levan Tedaishvili), who travels from Tbilisi to Brooklyn to fix a debt owed by his son, Soso (Giorgi Tabidze), who is not sleeping nor studying as he was supposed to. Staying in a hostel ran by his sister-in-law (Tsutsa Kapanadze), Kakhi ends up negotiating with the local Georgian mafia in a way that is as peculiar as unconvincing. He also helps with a case of injustice related to fellow countrywomen who are not being paid. 

Both the mise-en-scene and socio-economic realities depicted here are strong and compelling, but the film takes a bit too much time with alcohol-filled gatherings and Georgian chants. With that said, it still demonstrates the daily life and struggle of these people without resorting to misery or sentimentalism. Koguashvili prefers an intermittent caustic humor, connecting us with his sensitive character as he finds enough cultural specificity to keep the story afloat. 

It’s a shame that, despite a flawless characterization, the storytelling sometimes gets stranded in dispensable details and unlikely resolutions.

The Box (2022)

Direction: Lorenzo Vigas
Country: Venezuela / Mexico / USA

In Lorenzo Vigas’ The Box, a Mexican teenager (Hatzin Navarrete) sets out to collect his deceased father belongings and ends up taking part in the underworld machine of immigration and exploitation. At first, he’s left twisting in the wind in a strange land, with the doubt if his father really died. Soon, he learns the business with the man (Hernán Mendoza) he suspects changed his identity and abandoned him and his family without looking back. 

The film, as piercing as an internal scream of despair, warrants a response to the darkest realities of Mexico, tackling a sensitive theme through a brainy story punctuated with some surprises. The biggest amusement of this unsentimental tale of hope turned disenchantment is to see how this clever kid observes his surroundings and deals with each different situation.

This same subject was addressed with less issues in films such as Identifying Features and Prayers for the Stolen. Yet, even discreet and imbued with some strangeness, The Box still digs its own path within this particular drama subgenre. It caused me to ponder on the nature of each human being by making simple emotions complex, and complex questions impossible to answer.

Utama (2022)

Direction: Alejandro Loayza Grisi
Country: Bolivia / Uruguay / France

Utama, the first feature by Alejandro Loayza Grisi, takes us to the arid Bolivian highlands where an old couple of Quechua peasants - Virginio and Sisa (played by the affectionate real-life husband and wife, José Calcina and Luisa Quispe, who are non-professional actors) - receives their city-born grandson, Clever (Santos Choque), in their modest house. Virginio is ill and needs urgent medical care. However, despite his grandson’s pleas, he refuses to abandon his land and move to La Paz. 

This enchanting arthouse viewing experience, mesmerizingly photographed by its writer-director, is just impressive in its narrative breadth, inviting us to meditate on death, roots, forced migration, environmental threats, and our own deserts. It also focuses on generational clash, which much contributes to the dramatic tension of the film. 

Mobilizing all the power of cinema to service his narrative purpose, Grisi creates a simple film that fascinates by its romance, pastoral poetry, and the beauty of its hypnotic staging. This is accompanied by indigenous percussive music and acapella chants that can intensify the tension or appease the soul. Symbology is also present in the form of the sad crying of the llamas and the ominous flight of the condor. 

This admirable aesthetic sense coupled with the cultural and climate change subjects makes Utama one of those films that, holding steadfast to its realism, sticks with you till the very end. After the final credits roll, we slowly recover from the gentle power, latent delicacy, and undiminished poignancy of this story with the thought that life must go on.