Educational Media Reviews Online

Very quickly into this film, one is reminded of Marlowe’s observation in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: “It is impossible to convey the life sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence – that which makes its truth, its meaning – its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream – alone…”

The opening scene is repeated at the closing, and shows an Indian girl, questioning the white filmmaker: “What color do you see things?” “The same color as you.” “How do you know what color that is.”

The main point of the film seems to be that people ultimately can’t truly understand one another. Not only does the filmmaker Andres, played by the director, and his intended subjects the Guarani Indians of Bolivia not understand each other; the Guarani and the Ayoreos don’t understand each other.

Andres seems to make a lot of assumptions about himself and the world and people around him, so that it becomes hard to be sympathetic with such an apparently clueless dilettante. No wonder he is ridiculed even by his own hired guide, Yari, “the fox.”

While stating that documentary filmmaking is genocide, he sets out on a half-baked quest inspired by a century old Swedish documentary, and admits to his guide that he has no idea what his film will be about. With that kind of direction, he needn’t worry about the genocide idea, because he never appears to get anything on film anyway.

Obsessed with words, Andres razors his notes into ribbons which he then connects together like a string collector. Yet his notes turn eventually into squiggles, reflecting the failure of language to bring people together, and he eventually abandons them. As Andres slowly and sometimes painfully learns from his hosts, however, one sees hope for him.

The Guarani are likened to bats, which see with their ears in the whites’ world of light, while the whites are themselves deaf in the bats’ world of darkness. It is when Andres starts to see with his ears that he begins to appreciate the world as never before, and recognize that we will all necessarily walk together in an ever-shrinking world. Our only path is interaction, hopefully leading to eventual understanding.

While the story line of this film may leave something to be desired, the photography is visually quite striking, with scenes of colorful indigenous festivals and village life, and the austere beauty of rural Bolivia.

Director Juan Carlos Valdivia won the Royal Reel Award for Best Feature Film at the 2014 Canada International Film Festival. He was also nominated for Best Film in the International Competition at the 2013 Mar del Plata Film Festival. Ramiro Fierro took the Best Sound award at the 2013 Havana Film Festival.