Magaly Solier is heartbreaking as Saturnina in Brosens & Woodworth’s brilliant ALTIPLANO
ALTIPLANO (Brosens & Woodworth, 2009)
Village East Cinema
181-189 Second Ave.
Opens Friday, August 20
212-529-6799
www.firstrunfeatures.com/altiplano
www.villageeastcinema.com
In a small village in the Peruvian Andes, children are playing with pockets of silver liquid that have emerged from belowground. During an outdoor religious celebration, the statue of the Virgin Mary comes crashing down, shattering into pieces. The statue’s caretaker, Saturnina (Magaly Solier), lets out a piercing cry. Meanwhile, Grace (Jasmin Tabatabai), an award-winning war photographer from Belgium, puts away her camera for good after being forced at gunpoint to take a picture of her Iraqi guide as he is brutally murdered in cold blood. The lives of these two women are soon thrust together as the people in the village begin losing their eyesight and Grace’s husband, Max (Olivier Gourmet), a doctor, tries to find out why. Written, directed, and coproduced by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth (KHADAK), ALTIPLANO is a masterful, brilliant film. The meditative pace, elegiac score, and surreal imagery — each stunning shot, courtesy of cinematographer Francisco Gózon, is composed like an individual work of art — combine to create an unparalleled cinematic experience that is nothing short of breathtaking. ALTIPLANO is not just about mercury poisoning, based on an actual mining spill that occurred in 2000; it’s about the very act of seeing and believing. “Without an image,” Saturnina says, “there is no story.” Grace no longer looks at the world through her camera, whereas Max is a relentless videographer, constantly sending his wife video messages. While the villagers continue to lose their sight, a blind man works hard to repair the Virgin Mary statue in time for Saturnina’s wedding. And audiences are not seeing double; the directors cast the same actor, Edgar Condori, as Saturnina’s fiancée and Grace’s guide, furthering the connection between the two women. ALTIPLANO melds Bergman and Fellini with Kubrick and Solanas, resulting in an unforgettable portrait of love and loss, faith and fate, made by two fiercely independent filmmakers.