Once you proceed a certain distance into a project like this you have to consider the limits and parameters of how far you’re willing to go in order to achieve completion. For instance I didn’t really want to travel outside of my native Illinois in order to do this, and in a world where the Internet exists I shouldn’t have to. I also wanted to minimize the amount of money that I would need to spend in order to access these films. Achieving this latter aim would require spending a great deal of time in libraries, looking up movies on worldcat.org, researching various distribution companies and film institutes, and poking around a sundry of dodgy websites looking for any accessible online and download possibilities that I could find. I accepted that I would have to do all of this. What I didn’t expect was any measure of dependence on commercial digital providers like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime. It’s not that I don’t like some of these companies, nor the fact that I’m a bit of a cheapskate (well to be fair, that’s part of the reason), but rather because these services mainly offer access to films from countries that already have a good portion of their cinematic output available on DVD and thus it wouldn’t be necessary to rely on them. Countries like Costa Rica made me think otherwise.
Based on my research, the DVD distribution of Costa Rican cinema has been really sparse. And while it’s great that the country’s cinematic fare are getting screened at international film festivals, ultimately I still believe that long-term, perpetual access to cinema is best achieved through physical media. For me this is still the best archival format in order to preserve the global cinematic history of film, which is ultimately what this project will be dedicated to. But as for Costa Rica, I could legitimately get my hands on stuff like Caribe which doesn’t really work due to its decidedly international cast, or I could get lucky enough to access hard to find imports like Agua fría de mar, which according to worldcat.org is the only film from Paz Fábrega that’s ever been released on DVD anywhere. As for Fábrega’s second feature film, it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in 2015 where it got a lot of positive reviews. Since then it has been showed at festivals in cities like Miami, Chicago, and possibly others that have eluded my investigative efforts. Apart from festivals and one-off showings, the only way to see this in the US is through online streaming. And if Kanopy doesn’t work for you, your only true option is to watch this with an Amazon Prime account. If there was any solace in submitting myself to the world of digital media distribution, it’s that I was able to watch this during my 30-day trial, so technically I didn’t have pay any money to watch it. Plus the world can now partially blame Jeff Bezos and his evil empire for their blind assistance in helping me pull off this concept.
This is one of those films where the first thing that stands out is the imagery and overall cinematography. The film was beautifully shot in black and white, which for me always gives a film a distinctly gritty and stark aura. There’s a verisimilitude that you get with black and white imagery that’s hard to replicate in color. And yet what’s strange about this film is that it chronicled a love story between two casual strangers. It’s grim, realistic visual aesthetic seemed to be at odds with a narrative trope that is usually characterized by its hopeful idealism, even though I think ultimately the visual tone added some credence to the film’s ending.
The camerawork is also noteworthy. The opening shot of the film in which a camera was placed in the middle of a staircase and continuously panned vertically to follow the action of the performers showed some of the film’s creativity. The framing at times was excellent. The scene where Luciana missed her bus and then desperately ran after it was flawlessly staged. Another sequence that I liked was the late night discussion between both characters in the tent. Here the two performers were rarely seen in the same shot which isolated them to a degree. Thus their discussion about the other people involved in their lives had a distant, disconnected feel to it, given the cinematographic approach were the reverse shots ping ponged back and forth between them. The film added some additional intrigue by capturing the Costa Rican wilderness which still looked good despite the lack of color, and which served as an interesting backdrop for the affair. This particular setting perhaps suggested an escape from the world that both characters would normally inhabit, which I think was appropriate given the nature of their relationship. Overall the camerawork relied on lengthy shots with a modest amount of camera movement that maintained a great deal of focus on the two main performers, and which afforded them some space to perform.
I thought the acting was great and credit should be given to both Kattia González and Fernando Bolaños for the energy, enthusiasm and pure vigor in the way they performed the material which was very engaging. Granted one could argue about how much ‘acting’ actually took place given the candid, extemporaneous tone of the performances. But even if most of the film was improvised, the performances exhibited a realism that wonderfully complemented the film’s visual aesthetic. Furthermore González and Bolaños also had a rhythm and chemistry between them that made their relationship seem believable. Both also did great work after the film’s one true plot point, when the characters suddenly had to contemplate how serious their relationship could get. Generally I found favor in how both handled the complexity of their roles and the emotional territory that they had to traverse. A great example of this was the taxi scene at the beginning of the film. Here González and Bolaños began the scene by taking some childish, morbid pleasure in their absurd notions of parenthood until they slowly grow more austere and solemn while getting chastised by the driver (played with great spirit by Hernan Jimenez who is heard from, but never seen). The gradual shift in disposition and tone by both performers through their physical acting was played to near perfection.
The acting in this sequence did a great job of building the thematic foundation for the film. At the center of this film are two people still willing to indulge in the absurd, playful fancies of youth and who at the onset have little desire for a mature, adult relationship with all the responsibilities and commitments that such a thing would demand. One could argue that initially the characters don’t necessarily fall in love with each other, as much as they are tempted by the mere notion of a fling. The problem with flings, as this movie brilliantly shows, is that the pleasure they generate can create a longing that goes against their very nature. This yielded the film’s modest conflict, which is rather artistically exposed during the tree climbing scene, where Luciana cheerfully refused Pedro’s hand and ultimately never accepted it. While González was clearly the more ebullient of the two, credit should given to Bolaños for giving his character a subtle guile in trying to elevate the relationship beyond what it was. In the end what little narrative the film had, embraced the qualities of a mild tragedy in its exploration of romantic possibilities that might open briefly through the occurrence of chaotic, fortuitous human behavior, but which ultimately existed within a relationship that was logistically infeasible.
Another strength of the film was its writing. Early on many of the lines had a subtle, dark humor to them which gave the film an appealing comedic tone. It also afforded the performers a chance to inject their characters with enough personality to draw you into the film. The film did have a paper thin narrative that perhaps could have been better developed, but it still contained a major turning point when Luciana missed her bus. This completely changed the entire tone of the film as the notion of what was initially a fun weekend trip threatened to become a full blown romantic liaison. There was enough forward progression and narrative coherence in the sequencing to where it didn’t feel completely aimless like other films that I’ve watched in this series. At worst the film could be somewhat boring and perhaps a bit repetitive at times, but the pacing was good and the film itself is not very long clocking in at just over 70 minutes. I actually like the shortness of the film given its thematic concept. We get enough time to know and like these characters, but yet they leave before we tire of them. This enhanced the transient and abrupt nature of such moments in life. If the film leaves you wanting more, then it allows you to feel the same emotion as the characters, which is downright genius.
Viaje is a strange film in that it never truly felt like a big, epic, world class film and yet I didn’t find much wrong with how it was constructed. There’s a lot more to the film then what initially meets the eye and generally I regarded it as a beautifully conceived, well thought out and well executed effort.