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Even though the Best International Feature category exists to celebrate world cinema, AMPAS tends to be biased in favor of European films. Productions from Africa, Asia, and Latin America tend to get shortchanged, although many stupendous films harken to those continents. Those tendencies may be waning though; In the last decade, only half of the winners came from Europe. With recent victories for Mexico and Chile, maybe we're living through a newfound openness from the Academy towards Latin American excellence? Speaking of which, we've already reviewed the flicks from Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, and Venezuela. Now, it's time to examine the submissions of Costa Rica, Peru, and Uruguay…
LAND OF ASHES (Costa Rica)
Adapting a short film into a feature-length project, director Sofía Quirós has created a lyrical meditation on death and independence seen through the eyes of a 13-year-old girl named after the jungle, Selva. Hazy, almost vaporous, the simple story of her confrontation with loss unfolds like a colorful plume of smoke, parts of it swirling and becoming transparent as they dance up. A mother-figure leaves, her shadow whispering advice about boiled snakes, while another maternal specter keeps stepping into dreams, prayers, memories. An aged protector, Selva's frail grandfather, yearns for death. The girl hesitates, loneliness clawing at her soul, biting her heart with its threatening maw, paralyzing her with painful doubt. Cinematographer Francisca Saéz Agurto paints Land of Ashes in a thousand shades of celadon and viridian. Through her lens, the forest calling for the characters like an old god whose majesty demands worship. The sea is lapis lazuli, a pool of color that frames the young protagonist as if she were a watery spirit. It's a beautiful film that flows like a refreshing stream, the currents of youthful melancholy making for a spellbinding effect. These sterling qualities notwithstanding, the film never escapes the feeling that it's a short stretched out so thin we can read a newspaper through it. For instance, Selva comes off as the impression of a person, not a real human being. Her presence is a more pretext for Land of Ashes' evocative visuals than a complete character capable of sustaining an entire picture. B-
SONG WITHOUT A NAME (Peru)
In a Lima clinic, sometime in the 1980s, a poor indigenous woman gives birth to a baby daughter. Before she's had time to hold her progeny, the child is whisked away, never to be seen again. In no time, the clinic disappears too, a mirage in the urban desert, a smokescreen dissipating. Inspired by real events in Peru's troubled history, Song Without a Name is part journalistic exposé, part tone poem. Shooting in luminous black-and-white with a boxy round-cornered aspect ratio, Melina León tells the story of that beleaguered mother and the gay journalist she asks for help. They're two strange heroes, a pair of marginalized people in Peru's society whose lives tremble under the burden of unspoken hierarchies of oppression, prejudice, misery. Nevertheless, you'd be wrong to suppose Song Without a Name is a simple procession of suffering. León knows how to modulate the tragic aspects of her film, undercutting them with sparks of joy. A traditional dance here, a steamy kiss there, these moments breathe vitality and needed hope into the monochrome cosmos. They also allow the cast to modulate their characters' sorrow, which is especially important in the case of Pamela Mendonza, who pours her heart and soul into the leading role. Watching her grapple with her baby's disappearance is a violent thing, her pain irradiating from the screen, becoming more suffocating as the film unfolds and time's merciless waves start corroding her resilience. Historical context is sparse though shocking, positioning this elegiac lament as a song fueled by rage, the indignation of a childless mother, the pain of a loveless lover, the empathy that brings people together, the hope that gives people the strength to keep living. B+
ALELÍ (Uruguay)
The death of an old patriarch throws an Uruguayan family into disarray in Leticia Jorge's Alelí. When the film opens, tragedy has already occurred, and we, the audience, are left as unmoored as the protagonists. While they attempt to work through their complicated contradicting feelings and negotiate the dead man's property, the spectator tries to scramble pieces of information and make sense of the prickly family dynamics. The script written by Jorge and Ana Guevara Pose is rich with details of past resentments left to rot in the sun, old wounds that have festered, gangrenous ill-will tainting the relationship of three adult siblings and their elderly mother. Still, despite the characters coming off as tridimensional individuals, the result of honest observation and social analysis, there's a stiff broadness to the picture's story, its stage-like conceits, and limited scope. Actions feel too cartoonish, even as the motivating sentiment that ignites them is believably human. Ghosts of the past materialize in a perfunctory manner, their haunting reading as a clichéd crutch. Regarding the movie's cast, the actors are unable to contradict the sitcom-y text, but they do deliver a string of committed performances. The way the siblings mirror each other's gestures is remarkable and deserves special praise, for instance, as does the clever editing that brings attention to how, despite their differences, they often move as one. C
Unlike a plethora of Best International Feature submissions, these three films are readily accessible to the American public. You can find Land of Ashes on MUBI, while Song Without a Name and Alelí are streaming on Netflix. This might be of some help, but, overall, the projects all feel too low-profile to get AMPAS' attention. Song Without a Name seems like the one most likely to get into the shortlist of 15 finalists. Even then, its inclusion would be a surprise. I'm rooting for it, at the very least.