Reviews
Utama
Reviewed by Vaughan Ames
Set in the Bolivian high Andean plateau, now dry with little or no rain -it is one of the worst climate-change affected places on earth - we meet Virginio and Sisa, who live from hand to mouth in the middle of nowhere. This used to be easier when the rains came but now Virginio walks their llamas, looking for grass and water every day, while Sisa's job is to fetch water – harder and harder as even the village well has dried up. The village is getting emptier as the youth move to the cities, leaving only the elderly to guard the old ways and keep the language - Quechua – alive. This is a film about climate change, migration and loss of culture, though none of these are mentioned by name.
We already know Virginio has a terrible cough before their grandson Clever arrives, trying to encourage the pair to move back to the city with him. Virginio will have nothing to do with it; knowing he is dying he wants Sisa to 'go to the lake' with him – they don't need medicine he says.
A beautiful, slow film which showed an incredibly hard way of life and brought out the generational differences – Clever spoke Spanish and messaged home on his mobile while the old couple survived one day at a time... There seemed no way that anyone could survive there much longer, the end of another culture, another way of life.
We already know Virginio has a terrible cough before their grandson Clever arrives, trying to encourage the pair to move back to the city with him. Virginio will have nothing to do with it; knowing he is dying he wants Sisa to 'go to the lake' with him – they don't need medicine he says.
A beautiful, slow film which showed an incredibly hard way of life and brought out the generational differences – Clever spoke Spanish and messaged home on his mobile while the old couple survived one day at a time... There seemed no way that anyone could survive there much longer, the end of another culture, another way of life.