If I could give this film 20 points, I would. If not already a fantastic piece of art - the cinematography, the pace, the performances - it is a testimony of what art should be to begin with, a consciousness of life and the state of humanity, the individual and local iterating universal problems, and the most screaming one of all, the lack of compassion. While most films scream, literally and unconsciously, leaving the viewer in pain, this one states things as they are in a silent way. How could it be that we allow war on civilisation to go on, in the real world, and turn a blind eye as a whole? A conversation with the filmmaker at Sofia Film Fest threw insight, beginning with the misuse of masculine energy and the violence on women and children, which hasn't subdued one iota throughout history. The impact of the film on me was such, that I stood up all night. What can we do to reinstate the feminine? Nothing but to talk, to be aware of it, or else wild rage will keep permeating the collective.
We have in the film Tacho, a natural from a remote village who's been served news of the death of his daughter. A Mexican village or it could be any; his daughter but she is all daughters. Tacho had inadvertently blinded her in one eye in a drunken fit, so she left. The blindness here could be an allusion to the deprivation of the world of the full female gaze. Tacho must embark on a soul-searching journey to collect her body. The film begins with beautiful stills of his rural life and the corn harvest; there's little talk. Indeed, Tacho himself "doesn't like to talk" and is illiterate. I was captivated by the light, the warmth of colour, with many of the stills worthy of a painting - and surprised when the director shared that he views the first part of the film as an embodiment of masculine energy, while the second one - of the feminine, the city moving and flowing, wet with rain and talkative. This was an interesting subversion, given the violence of the city and the fact we associate the land with the mother: the feminine has dried up bearing man's sin and is misplaced, but the urban is overflowing with the tears of daughters. To think of it, a mother's figure was absent from the picture and narrative - and could it be that the subjugation and indifference of women to the lunacy of patriarchy allows all this to happen. The closest to a mother, a female figure with authority in the film, is a clerk (or two clerks) who should allow Tacho to bury his daughter; not much is asked of her, but she turns a blind eye. This is how we fail as humanity, the director said, adding that the clerk was not otherwise a bad person. How can it be she is not, I asked, and isn't indifference the root and snakepit of evil? He made the obvious case that everyone has been careless and indifferent at some point; and yet, isn't this the crack that sucks us into irreversible dehumanisation? How many reflect on their lives and consider what such moments of carelessness might have wreaked? How many turn into zombies due to their own victimhood or willing ignorance? Isn't the global problem of loneliness just that - our self-imposed, self-serving isolation, and eventually our doom - and how could it be that hell rises on earth while we seek to be amused, with laughing emoticons and the motto "who cares"?... If this isn't our loom and doom, what is? Jung had said that one doesn't become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the unconscious - conscious; until we do so, it will direct our lives and we will call it fate.
Fate, or the energy of the film, had lead the director to "randomly" finding Tacho. There was an instance, he said, when he was in a room with Tacho and his wife, who both burst in tears. It turned out they had also lost a daughter. And the director's motivation for filming was his father's machismo. In the film, Tacho meets a lost daughter in beautiful and poignant scenes, culminating in a shattering monologue by the lead actress. We learn that Tacho hilmself has become an actor, starring in another film following this one. "Maybe he'll become a rock star", said the filmmaker. Better not; rock'n'roll better be dead and all the sexual transgressions of mankind. The red shoes (symbol of the violence on women) Tacho wanted to bury his daughter in, are stolen, when Tacho himself is a victim of violence. Rosa ends up in the mass grave of our collective unconscious, but her one eye stares at us from the morgue. We may even wake up and revive her and her sight. Tacho is indeed a better actor than professional ones, with his amazing portrayal of masculinity melting into fragility in his old age when finally facing the horror of his daughter's fate of which he's responsible. "All the important things in life we realise too late." Most men defy even death with a stiff upper lip. Most men are scared to death and live their lives as infants. Just to think that all they crave is a gentle female touch.
"We can't hide pain, it stays in the heart. I feel your pain because it is mine, too."
5 out of 5 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
