Pure cinema, apparently casual in its story, image and sound, about ordinary, lonely people who live on a remote Chilean island. Who are we to contradict the film maker: 'I would dare say that it is a film of “strolls”: mental, virtual, on foot, in automobiles, aboard ferries…'
Young film makers have changed the face of Latin American cinema greatly in recent years. Especially Argentine and Mexican directors have made a name for themselves with stories that are local yet universal; earthy and spiritual at the same time. This first feature provides an idiosyncratic, pure contribution to this new Latin American wave.
In the South of Chile, on a thinly populated island where the climate is not so very different from Holland, he follows the lonely lives of three women and a man. The lyricism of Torres is self-assured and modest, his mise-en-scène stunning and calm, solemn yet without unnecessary effect, his characters moving in their lonely, precise simplicity.
Torres Leiva: 'This is a film about the blending of man and his environment; I wanted to set it in a very short narrative time span, bathed in silence. This represents an invitation for the audience to build on the tale that I have written other possible stories which are not related in the film. I would like it to succeed in moving and touching the audience who will have to free themselves from the usual rational approach to films, and accept that they should let themselves go, carried along by the sounds and images. If one had to provide a resume of this project in a simple concept, I would dare to say that it is a film about "strolls": mental, virtual, on foot, in cars, aboard ferries...' (GT)