Argentine writer-director Tomás Gómez Bustillo’s Chronicles of a Wandering Saint is a glowing debut
CHRONICLES OF A WANDERING SAINT (Tomás Gómez Bustillo, 2023)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, June 28
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.chroniclesofawanderingsaint.com
About thirty-five minutes into Tomás Gómez Bustillo’s gorgeous, elegiac debut feature, Chronicles of a Wandering Saint, a meditative dark comedy on love, faith, and the afterlife, a deeply sad tragedy occurs and the credits begin to roll. But just as the protagonist is reborn at that moment, so is the film itself.
In a small, religious Argentina town, Rita (Mónica Villa) spends much of her time at Saint Rita church, either praying with her three friends, Viviana (Noemí Ron), Beba (Silvia Porro), and Alicia (Ana Silvia Mackenzie), or cleaning, mopping the floors until they glisten. She and her husband, Norberto (Horacio Marassi), live a simple life; they have no children and don’t travel. While Norberto still has a lust for life, Rita looks tired. When Norberto suggests that they go back to the waterfalls they visited on their honeymoon forty years earlier, Rita doesn’t understand why.
“Well, the waterfalls are still the exact same,” she says. He responds, “But we’re not.”
Rummaging through the church basement, Rita comes upon an object she believes to be a statue of Saint Rita, missing for thirty years. Before even seeing it, Father Eduardo (Pablo Moseinco) declares it must be a miracle. However, when, after further research, Rita realizes it’s not Saint Rita, she and Norberto decide to fake it, proceeding with her claim nonetheless. It all goes well, until it doesn’t. But that’s only part of this tender and touching magical realism tale.
Chronicles of a Wandering Saint is built around the concept of a spiritual glow, as stated in Proverbs 13.9: “The light of the righteous shines brightly, but the lamp of the wicked is snuffed out.”
Early on, Rita is cleaning the floor of the church, and Beba tells her, “Quit mopping so much or those shiny floors will end up blinding us.” Several parishioners gather in the back and sing, “The light from your shining face will illuminate all the paths that lead to eternity.” And when people die, they eventually transform into a blinding white light; one person is actually reincarnated as a lightbulb. In one of the most surreal moments, Luchito (Iair Said), now a moth, can’t keep away from Quique (Mauricio Minetti), a bulb over a woman’s front door.
The film is reminiscent of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 2010 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, which is another fascinating integration of the human, animal, and spirit worlds. Bustillo maintains a similar slow pace but adds hilarious scenes beautifully photographed by Pablo Lozano, with spectacular production design by Doriane Desfaugeres, wonderful costumes by Margarita Franco, and a gentle, melancholic score by Felipe Delsart. The film is composed of still shots; the camera moves only once, zooming in on a piano, an instrument we later learn that Rita’s mother played.
When Norberto and Rita are in their kitchen talking about the waterfalls, they are both wearing yellow raincoats, the color echoed in the scrambled eggs and lemon wedge on their plates and the spray bottle on the table. Through the door is an old television set, furthering the idea that the couple, and the other parishioners, are living in an uncluttered, old-fashioned past despite Rita’s use of Facebook and a smartphone. Their old car has a cassette player; when she’s driving, Rita puts on a homemade mix tape that includes a dance-pop cover of Bryan Adams’s “Heaven.”
A shot of Rita sitting alone in a tiny bus shelter, looking downtrodden, surrounded by green grass and trees, a light pole rising behind her, is stunning; next to the shelter is a sign pointing out three nearby locations, but right then Rita has nowhere to go, unsure of which path to take. Not even the book she was reading about el Camino de Santiago, detailing the popular Christian pilgrimage itinerary, can help her now.
Villa (Wild Tales, The Holy Girl) is mesmerizing as Rita, a pious, devoted woman who wants to live up to her namesake. Her performance, especially her eyes, recalls Fellini wife and muse Giuletta Masina, who lit up such films as Nights of Cabiria and La Strada. Rita is not seeking much out of life, only a miracle. But as Norberto tells her, “If you want it to be a miracle, then it is.”
The multi-award-winning Chronicles of a Wandering Saint runs June 28 – July 11 at IFC Center; the LA-based Bustillo will be on hand for Q&As on Friday and Saturday at 7:05, joined by executive producer Samir Oliveros, producers Gewan Brown and Amanda Freedman, and moderators Taylor A. Purdee and Isabel Custodio.
Oh, one last note: Beware those unexpected sneezes. . . .
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]