Cenizas eternas (2011) Reviews

• Immersion in cultural and ancestral humanity

  christian942011-08-28

  The writer/director, Margarita Cadenas, presented this film at the World Premiere in the Montreal World Film Festival. The screening was greeted with immense praise and admiration. This had been a ten year project along with a related documentary, but the final product was not short of visceral and outstanding. The beginning of the movie is rather typical and somewhat slow, but once you are alone in the amazon, the human aspect of survival is well portrayed. Then you plunge into a cultural experience like none other. With all the films looking at indigenous or earlier civilizations from "Quest for Fire (1981)" to "Apocalypto (2005)", this is the definite experience. I, myself, have briefly lived in the tribal world of the Vietnamese Red Yao people, an experience which changed my life, but this look into an ancient living culture in the midst of the Amazon is stupendous. The text and subtext, the acting and cinematography, the dirt-digging directing and the minimalist music all add to this masterpiece. A France and Venezuela co-production, this movie has all the necessary technique and humanness to warrant a prize at the festival which will deliberate today. I wish this film all the success it deserves and to the film-going public to discover the best Venezulan film ever and one of the best film of 2011. This movie will plunge you in a world of tribal nature like Cameron's "Avatar (2009)", but will manage to keep you more grounded with details of humanity that leaves only life and no vanity... A simple story, but told so superbly. Straight to the essentials. No sensationalism like "Cannibal Holocaust (1980)"; culture exploration and existentialism at all cost. The director also mentioned she based this tale on two real life stories including a woman from Brazil who was kidnapped by the Yanomami and lived with them 33 years only to be rejected by her family at her return. No one in the audience could believe that all the speaking parts were actors and not real Yanomami tribe people. The training, creation and direction, including art direction, give a feel so realistic you will have experienced life in the remote amazon as the protagonist does. Go see this to discover your kind and yourself.

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