Léalo en español
As the human settlement farthest south in the world, Puerto Williams has long been a trivia challenge for geography buffs. When Clouds Hide the Shadows should firmly plant this small outpost (population: just south of 3,000) on the map for cinephiles. Making use of the town’s stunning vistas, complex history and intriguing isolation, director José Luis Torres Leiva slowly untangles a grief-stricken urbanite’s repressed emotions through her enlightening encounters with an array of locals.
Screened as part of the Jeonju Cinema Project, Jeonju International Film Festival’s long-running initiative to finance (or in this case, co-finance) three off-mainstream productions a year, When Clouds Hide the Shadows boasts mesmerising imagery and contemplative conversations about the epheremal qualities of human existence.
Argentinean actor María Alché gives a heartbreakingly nuanced turn against the natural performances of non-pros – mostly local residents playing themselves. This moving meditation on life should float easily through the festival circuit after its bow in South Korea.
Feted for her breakout performance as a confused suburban teenager in Lucrecia Martel’s 2004 directorial debut The Holy Girl, Alché (who is now a director in her own right) plays María, an actor travelling from Buenos Aires to Puerto Williams for a film shoot. Already unnerved by the taxing, 30-hour journey across stormy waters, she arrives only to learn that she will be spending a week on her own before the film crew makes it to town.
From her testy conversation with a fellow traveller on the ship and then her struggle to settle into her new surroundings, María seems to be not in a good place emotionally. Reinforcing Alche’s fine performance is cinematographer Cristián Soto’s mix of long shots. These dwarf María’s presence amidst snow-capped mountains and lapping waters, while close-ups highlight the anxiety and listlessness in her bloodshot eyes and troubled demeanor.
María claims she’s looking for some emotional balm in the solitude of Puerto Williams, an idea Torres Leiva expresses by showing her dictating her thoughts into a recording device the film crew entrusts her with. But it is through her immersion in the community that she gradually attains solace of sorts. Chatting to a young mother nursing her baby, the lone grocer providing everything from souvenirs to medication, and angst-ridden teenagers with whom she engages in an impromptu acting workshop, she gains some perspective in learning how the secluded locals keep tabs on their past, live well in the present and aspire to something better in the future.
María’s attempts to resolve acute (or possibly psychosomatic) bouts of physical pain also put her in touch with another part of Puerto Williams’ historical and social fabric. As she receives traditional medical treatment – which involves splashing herbs on her body and a spiritualist conversation resembling therapy – the indigenous culture in the area emerges to the fore. These are the Yahgans, who dominated the region for several millennia before they were brought to their knees by colonial violence, imported diseases and economic appropriation. A local describes them as leading a parallel existence to the “civilians” – that is, the residents of European ancestry who live in Puerto Williams, separately from the military conscripts sent to live in a Chilean naval base in town.
When Clouds Hide the Shadows just nods at such issues. In one scene, a pair of well-heeled, well-read retirees make off-the-cuff remarks about southern Chile being uninhabited before the arrival of European explorers; in another, María remarks on the ominous noise of local ranchers and their baying hounds. But the film doesn’t try to replicate the Chilean historical dramas Sorcery (Brujería) or The Settlers (Los colonos), which made a cutting critique on the country’s dark past and the current revisionist take on it.
Here, the struggle is one that’s more personal than political. What is hinted at during María’s chance meeting with a botanist, whose expertise lies in minute insects with life cycles lasting just days, is finally expanded in a long conversation between María and a grief-stricken woman heading to the local hospital for a vital check-up. In this scene, Torres Leiva and his co-writer Alejandra Moffat highlight how human beings, feeble that they are, are creatures made up of optimism and pessimism in varying shades – a diverse palette like the sights and sounds in the film itself.
Director: José Luis Torres Leiva
Screenwriter: José Luis Torres Leiva, Alejandra Moffat
Cast: Maria Alché
Producers: Catalina Vergara
Director of photography: Cristián Soto
Editors: Andrea Chignoli, José Luis Torres Leiva
Music composer: Diego Noguera
Sound: Ernesto Trujillo, Claudio Vargas, Peter Rosenthal
Production companies: Globo Rojo Films
Venue: Jeonju International Film Festival
In Spanish
70 minutes
