Maldives Bolivia city Santos county La Paz film Citi Waters Breathtaking Maldives Bolivia city Santos county La Paz

‘Utama’ Review: Home Is Where the Water Is in Breathtaking Bolivian Character Portrait

Reading now: 104
variety.com

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticWhen one is asked to picture those who are are most impacted by global warming, the imagination flashes to Inuits on a melting ice floe or Maldives natives threatened by rising tides, not Bolivian shepherds who graze their livestock on the Altiplano, nearly 12,000 feet above sea level.

But the residents of these remote highlands are also endangered, as director Alejandro Loayza Grisi reveals in his sublime, quietly elegiac feature debut, “Utama,” focusing on an elderly couple who refuse to relocate to the nearby city of La Paz, even as mountain glaciers melt, rains become less reliable and their herd of llamas slowly succumb to dehydration.Played by actual couple José Calcina and Luisa Quispe (authentic, nonprofessional actors whom Loayza Grisi had to convince to participate), long-married Virginio and Sisa share a small mud house without electricity or running water.

Fetching water has always been a chore for Sisa — that’s her responsibility, Virginio sternly reminds her, whereas he deals with the animals — but lately, it’s become harder than ever.

Normally, she can find what she needs in the nearby town, but the well has run dry, and it’s a long walk to the shrinking local river, which has dwindled to hardly the width of a one-lane road.

Read more on variety.com
The website starsalert.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.

Related News

DMCA