Review: Cielo – “a visually rich, beautiful-looking film”

Directed by Alberto Sciamma
Starring Fernanda Gutiérrez Aranda, Carla Arana, Juan Carlos Aduviri, Luis Bredow, Sasha Salaverry, Fernando Arze Echalar

Sciamma’s Cielo is a wonderfully unusual piece of filmmaking, and one which does not fit easily into any particular category (which is no bad thing, in my book). Young Santa (a remarkable performance from young Fernanda Gutiérrez Aranda), lives on a remote farm with her warm, loving mother, Paz(Carla Arana), and her violent, thuggish father (Juan Carlos Aduviri), on the high Altiplano of Bolivia. Maltreated by the father, the young daughter and her mother secretly plan to escape, but this is no ordinary escape from a bad domestic situation; they intend to follow the stars to Heaven (literally). It’s a long journey across some truly remarkable landscapes, and young Santa will meet – and change – several people on her voyage.

However, this simple synopsis really doesn’t do Cielo justice – this isn’t a film you follow in the normal, narrative manner (although there is a narrative there), this is more a film to be experienced. That story is there, but it is also filled with some fable-like, fantastical elements – in many ways, it reminded me of some of the great literature that has come out of Central and South America in the last century, where the everyday and a sort of magical realism often intertwine. Unusual imagery is conjured – in a very early scene we see our young girl scooping a fish from the nearby lake, then carefully swallowing it whole, and the fish symbol will recur throughout the film, as will other seemingly magical or miraculous events (a dead condor being brought back to life, for instance, or a wound healing).

But suppose some of Cielo is indeed a fable. In that case, it also has much in common with the older versions of fairy tales, before they were tidied up and sanitised for children, in that these magical moments are also interspersed with moment of sudden violence and even death, all the more shocking after the more magical moments, and the absolutely beautiful cinematography. On that latter note, props must be given to Alex Metcalfe’s gorgeous cinematography – his camera takes in those amazing landscapes, filmed in some beautiful compositions that fill the screen and the eye, while smaller, more personal scenes, such as Santa and her Mother together are composed with equal care and an eye for strong visuals (even simple elements like the colours of the clothes on the girl and woman in that bright, Bolivian light, were quite lovely, this really is ravishing filmic visuals to drink in).

This is a journey that takes in a fish in a bucket of water (which Santa talks to on her travels), a local police chief who is troubled and emotional behind his macho moustache, and even a group of travelling Cholita female wrestlers, all of whom end up helping Santa, and being changed by her, while flashbacks show her birth and first few years, and again some possible miracles and little bits of magic around her, which she and her mother share (the father scoffs and then returns to his drink and his violence, his eyes closed to everything else). Is Santa actually creating little (and sometimes not so little) miracles, or are people seeing what they want to (a village priest, Father Jaime (Luis Bredow) tells her mother at one point how many times someone tells him of a person in a nearby village who can work supposed miracles (but can’t).

The film offers up the scenes, but leaves it open to the audience to interpret; it is perhaps not really a film about religion per se, but more about the nature of faith itself. Santa has a faith that carries her on a long journey, so sure she will find her way to Heaven, drawing people along in her orbit. Cielo is a visually rich, beautiful-looking film, with a stunning performance from its very young lead. This is a film you could easily lose yourself in.

Cielo has its UK Premiere at the SXSW London festival, with screenings on June 6th and 7th.