THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – NOT TO BE MISSED
What is this “great movement” displayed by the second feature film by the Bolivian Kiro Russo, a fascinating object with enigmatic contours, which is part of a galaxy of witchcraft works alongside those of the Thai Apichatpong Weerasethakul and the Argentinian Lisandro Alonso? It could be, first of all, the proliferation of La Paz, a congested metropolis which serves as its setting, where its share of traffic jams, merchandise and drudgery workers pours out every day. Or the roar of the mountain that overlooks the city and weighs down on it a leaden climate, where mysterious, telluric forces spread. All hypotheses remain open, but it’s a safe bet that this movement stems even more deeply from the cinema itself, this strange chemistry which gives birth in the mind of its spectator to all sorts of motives, hallucinations, passages.
The Great Movement can be described as an experience. It opens with a purely descriptive sequence: a kaleidoscopic portrait of the Bolivian capital where its geometric facades, its leprous walls, its distorting mirrors, its rare perspectives sometimes opening onto a blocked automobile axis parade. To the sound of a discordant symphony in which sirens and jackhammers pierce, the camera stops on the interlacing of electric cables, a whole tangled network – a sign that meaning will not be delivered ready-made. From the outset, an oppressive feeling hovers over the painting, of inhuman proportions, and it is under the sign of an obscure contamination that the film opens up to us.
Amazing Fade
It is only later that fiction takes over. Elder (Julio César Ticona), a miner, walked with his companions to La Paz to protest and defend their right to work. Between two demonstrations, he and two friends hang out in the shops, perform some handling tasks in the markets, go out in clubs. But Elder is affected by a strange disease, which no doctor manages to diagnose, and therefore to name. Where does this shortness of breath, this dry cough, these sweats and dizziness come from? At the same time, another character is revealed, half-tramp, half-sorcerer, a man named Max who lives on the outskirts of the city, and sometimes goes down there, grumbling some Pythian omen, like “ the city will be reduced to dust “. Step by step and without knowing it, Elder and Max walk towards each other, for an exorcism session dedicated to driving the disease out of the worker.
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