Director – Francisca Alegria – 2022 – Chile, France, US, Germany – Cert. 15 – 98m
***1/2
A dead woman emerges resurrected from a polluted river to reconnect with her husband, children and grandchildren – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 24th
The banks of a river cutting through a forest, strewn with dead fish. The sound of a strange song, a mournful chorale. Bubbles. A woman (Mia Maestro) rises from the water, dripping wet and clad in overalls and a helmet as if she’s been riding a motorcycle. She makes her way to the bank, collapses, coughs up water. She feels a joy in being, being back, being on land. She walks along a leaf-covered train track. She boards a bus, paying the driver not with the money for the fare but with a touch of her hand.
She doesn’t speak a word. The whole scenario doesn’t feel quite right. Is she real? Is she an apparition? She’s certainly unexpected in town, when her decades older husband Enrique (Alfredo Castro), collapses after seeing her from the inside of a shop window. Bernardo (Marcial Tagle) phones Cecilia (Leonor Varela) with the news that their father claims to have just seen their late mother, his wife Magdalene, which is, of course, impossible.… Read the rest
