The Film Experience

by Cláudio Alves

Sometimes, it feels as if Latin-American cinema is doomed to be forever underappreciated. Earlier this month, the Sight & Sound list notably ignored films from the Americas beyond US-made pictures. At the Oscars, the situation isn't much better. Since 2010, one can only find six Latin-American nominees out of sixty in Best International Film. (Sadly, the problem persists, though Argentina, 1985 and Bardo both might make the shortlist this year.) In no way does this reflect the realities of international cinema or even the quality of Latin submissions for the 95th Academy Awards. There are plenty of outstanding achievements to appreciate once you look beyond the buzzy titles…

THE KINGS OF THE WORLD (Colombia)

Imagine a day when all the men fall asleep, and all the fences on Earth burst into flames. Such is the hushed musings of young Rá, who spends his days running without a destination through the streets of Medellín. It's that same urban landscape we see while his voice whispers in the soundtrack, opening Laura Mora Ortega's sophomore feature in a tenor of dreamlike reverie. Only in this hypnotic prologue, those chaotic streets are empty, quiet at the break of dawn. The sky is bright blue, painting the air in the same azure shade, while yellowed lights reflect in pools of water over cracked concrete. A white horse stands amidst it all, incongruous.

The setting may inspire notions of desolation, but the image produced is hauntingly beautiful, hinting at a cinematic expression that reaches outside the boundaries of realism. Indeed, that horse is more metaphor than animal, a beacon of hope that promises freedom, reappearing to Rá throughout his odyssey. The Kings of the World may start in the city, but it soon wanders away as its young protagonist gets news of a new program by which the government will return land once stolen by the paramilitary authorities. Rá stands to benefit since his grandmother owned a parcel of property in Nechí, somewhere in the countryside.

As if pulled towards it by that white horse, the youngster goes in search of that land, deep into the unknown. Four friends, including his brother, come along for the ride, forming the makeshift family that gives the picture its title. The quintet of boys may be kings, but they're not yet men, brandishing blades in a parody of menace that soon devolves into childish play. Cultural expectations and economic conditions have shackled these street kids to masculine precepts fated for violence. Their reality is more complicated, still. An early encounter with a brothel in the middle of nowhere finds them melting away from pretend adults into helpless children. The moment isn't sexual, per se, as each boy rests their head on a sex worker's bosom, virile ambitions laid aside.

Such gestures speak of a filial need for comfort, motherly care, a kind touch in an unkind world. These instants of tenderness collide with brutality as the picaresque journey unfolds, the boys' bonds put to the test as hope erodes until they're left with nothing but the despair of innocence lost. Even then, Mora Ortega finds glimmers of grace, greatly aided by David Gallego's cinematography and Carlos E. García's sound design. The film often feels like a hallucination, a semi-lucid dream running parallel to a waking nightmare; like a Neorealist poem complete with non-professional actors and the appearance of documentary authenticity.

To watch The Kings of the World is to be immersed, spellbound by a lyrical cinema whose images vibrate with kinetic power, be it a camera taken afloat by a breath of wind or a river's wild current. No wonder festival juries have been so into it.

After its premiere at San Sebastián, Laura Mora Ortega's film has passed through several other festivals worldwide. It has won something at almost every one of them, from the Golden Seashell to a Silver Hugo. Staring open-mouthed at the screen, lost in cinephile awe, it's easy to see why festival juries have been so enamored with the picture. One can only hope that AMPAS follows suit. Don't miss the opportunity to watch The Kings of the World once it hits Netflix next year. B+/A-

LO INVISIBLE (Ecuador)

A gale's howl opens the film, soon followed by labored breathing. Clouds, maybe smoke, float over a forest, a car drives through manicured lawns. On the back rides a silent woman, expression hidden by oversized sunglasses and a general air of numbness. She's Luisa, and it'll take a while before she speaks her first lines. At 45, she's returning home after a bout of postpartum depression landed her in a psychiatric clinic, substituting one type of confinement for a different prison by another name. Everything is beautiful around her, markers of wealth defining the abode as a gilded cage in modernist lines. Herein, she wallows, ghost-like.

Sound designer Juan José Luzuriaga does wonders with this premise, externalizing Luisa's fraught interiority from minute one, thus shaping the film around a subjectivity that might have otherwise been lost between elegant imagery. Director Javier Andrade's compositions work against demonstrative emotion, often placing barriers between the camera and his leading lady. Great big windows juxtapose the lights of a faraway city atop Luisa's lonely figure, hinting at the film's form as a sort of fishbowl. We observe Luisa, sometimes in private settings and close proximity, but a transparent wall keeps her out of reach, contained in the hermetic cell of her own mind.

Moving past the affectations of form and social theater, one can sense the attempts at class commentary. However, Lo Invisible is, first and foremost, a mood piece cum character study. This limits what the film can do, and so does its short runtime, its predilection for a certain vagueness in dramaturgy and lethargic pacing. Still, there's much to appreciate in the picture, in how it explores Luisa's plight while allowing her to remain a mystery, even to herself. Only one person seems to be sure of the character's complete selfhood – lead actress Anahí Hoeneisen who delivers a taciturn tour-de-force, depicting a woman wavering between invisibility and the need to be seen. Through her and Luzuriaga's work, Lo Insivible proves itself a striking meditation on maladies rarely depicted on screen. B

THE BOX (Venezuela)

© MUBI

Glancing at the screen, one of the first things I noticed about Venezuela's The Box was how little black there was on any given frame. Sure, there are shadows, but the contrast has been dialed down until deep pockets of darkness become grayish rather than pitch-colored. As the film progresses, grey gives in to blue, winter falling over the arid mountainous scenery with snow blankets and an atmosphere where even warm light feels cold. There's an eeriness to Sergio Armstrong's cinematography which favors wide shots and vast vistas, dwarfing human figures against the majesty of a still and stark landscape.

Moreover, there's a repudiation of visual binaries of black-and-white, deep shadow versus blazing light. Sure, you can say just shooting a film in color does that, but The Box goes farther. It's as if the camera has materialized narrative ambiguity, suggesting a world where two opposite ideas can coexist as one, where someone can be and not be at the same time. That approach is no mere ornament, for it ties neatly into the film's storytelling. Lorenzo Vigas' first fiction feature after the Golden Lion-winning From Afar trades the Venezuelan setting of that debut for a Mexican milieu. However, themes of Latin masculinity persist, as does the idea of absent fathers.

Such thematic continuity goes beyond these two titles in Vigas' filmography and encompasses The Orchid Seller, a documentary about the director's father. Yet, The Box comes off as the most direct dissection of fatherhood from these three, following a young boy named Hatzín who travels a great distance to collect his father's remains. Only, in his paroxysms of grief, confusion takes over the youth. He convinces himself that a stranger he spots on the sidewalk is the dead man walking. Despite insistent assurances that he's mistaken, Hatzín grows attached, finding himself pulled into an underworld of migrant traffic and labor abuse, twisted concepts of filial duty paving a dark path.

It's a fascinating tale with sudden shocks of violence, disruptive forces pushing against rigorous form, and directorial severity. Though one could call it alienating, The Box is also subtly intimate, attuning itself to hidden vulnerabilities beautifully articulated through its cast's efforts. Vigas guided young Hatzín Navarrete to expose much of his personal pain regarding familial relationships, while Hernán Mendoza acts like the personification of Armstrong's lensing. His portrait of Mario is one of the year's great characterizations, mysterious and mundane, always a paradox made flesh. B+

Oscar odds? Lo Invisible is probably too low-profile to register for most voters, while The Box feels too austere for AMPAS' usual taste. That leaves The Kings of the World, whose international festival haul may indicate the possibility of broad support. It'd be lovely if Ortega's film made the shortlist, as it's among the best submissions this year. But of course, quality and Oscars don't always go together.