The River

What would you do for freedom?

A shy teenaged boy is sent to live on his estranged father on a ranch in the Amazon basin. The ranch's real business is timber which comes from the deforestation of the jungle around ranch. The father's timber business may be legal, but, in the words of one of the characters, it's also "cruel."

And, of course, so is the father. He doesn't care what happens when the timber is gone or the animals in the ecosystem they serve die. He sees the natural world as a thing to be conquered. He doesn't even care about the vast river. He prefers a swimming pool.

But, when the son arrives, things begin to change.

The director takes his time with the action, which moves at a slow and languid pace. He wants us to both enjoy the (gorgeous) scenery and be afraid of it. And then he shows us the series of small decisions people can make that change their lives forever.

I liked it.

The scenario is a small town fronting the Mamoré River in a region of the Bolivian tropical lowlands called El Beni. The Mamoré is a wide, fast flowing river that empties into the Madeira, one of the largest tributaries of the mighty Amazon, and marks the boundary between Bolivia and Brazil (Brazil is referred to as "the other side" in the movie). As a curiosity, in the Spanish spoken in El Beni, "you" is "vos" as in Argentina and Uruguay instead of "tu" like in Spain and most of Latin America.

Sebastián, a sullen adolescent living with his mother in La Paz has been summoned by his father Rafael to acquaint him with the functioning of a sawmill that he will eventually run. Rafael has a mistress. Julieta, many years his junior. Sebastián is suddenly immersed in an atmosphere of lies, mistrust and abuse whose only redeeming feature, if any, is not being covered with layers of religious hypocrisy and/or Bible thumping. Violence and abuse are always present, sometimes barely under the surface, sometimes in plain view.

Like in many other recent Latin American movies, what you see is what you get; there are no neat explanations, flashbacks or omniscient narrators. Matters are not tied up nearly at the end; we hear that Sebastián did not get along with his mother from snatches of dialogue, but we never know why. Life-changing decisions are taken in the spur of the moment and motivations are unclear. The effect of this approach is a movie that in spite (or because) its slowness catches your attention from the first minute on and never lets go.

This is the first feature film by Bolivian director Juan Pablo Richter (born in Trinidad, a town in El Beni), who also wrote the script His previous work includes two shorts and a co-direction. His debut could't be more auspicious. His direction is fluid, supported by excellent actors and a cinematography that does justice to the lush beauty of El Beni.

The Latin American movie industry is now a powerhouse of world cinema. The old stalwarts (Argentina, Mexico, Brazil) are still at work but contributions of the highest quality are coming from many other countries, among them Bolivia. This movie and Eugenia (2017) are examples. One wonders how Bolivian cinema will fare after the military/white supremacist coup that ended Bolivia's democracy. I still hope to see more of Richter's work.

The film starts well, but it deflates and becomes boring and hopeless. The silence is an overexploited resource that creates boring moments disguised as contemplative or deep moments. The characters are flatter than a board and lack a chemistry. The best of the film are the landscapes of the mamore river or the wildlife of the region. After that the whole movie is a mess.