Bajo California: El límite del tiempo

My wife and I were still in a feverish shock the night of Septmber 11, 2001 when this movie came on the Independent Film Channel.

How engrossing, what film making, and how soul nourishing -- we could finally go to sleep with some hope to cling to.

The main character is a blocked artist who accidentally kills (or injures) a pregnant immigrant running across a highway in order to reach the USA. He cannot escape his guilt and shame and decides to go on a trek to his ancestors' home - Baja California. 'nuf said.

CALDO is the word for SOUP in Spanish - and 'Bajo California' is soup for a weary soul.

PS - who do we lobby to get a DVD of this film?

I had the pleasure of catching this little gem here in Santa Fe. If you get the chance, don't miss it. A beautiful hero's journey of redemption, finding your roots, friendship, nature, against the stunning Baja California backdrop.

This is a slow-paced film about a guy who goes to visit the resting place of his ancestors. Must like Chariots of Fire (1981) it is slow as molasses. Yet the director of that Best Picture Winner could learn a lot about how to make a decent move from this one:

I. Characters: Both works focus mainly on two characters.

Bajo: Damian and Arce don't say much, but we come to find that they're the simplest of men. Damian is a simple artist and Arce is some sort of rural worker. Further on, we find out that Damian is being consumed by guilt over an unethical moment of weakness (so we feel sympathetic) and Arce is brave, resourceful, and an empathetic friend.

Chariots: Abrahams is an arrogant elite university SJW who cries when he loses at a race. Liddell is an arrogant and delusional guy who refuses to run on the Sabbath. The more they talk, they less we like them and the more bored we become.

II. Plot

Bajo: Damian is a guy who seems to want to discover his roots. We later learn he's remorseful about something he did and he's trying to deal with that by going off to his grandmother's grave before his wife gives birth. Arce is his stoic and mostly silent guide.

Chariots: Abrahams and Liddell want to win some foot race not even they care about.

III. Music

Bajo: Not much music. Mostly sounds of wind in the desert. Timeless.

Chariots: Some bland synthesizer track that everyone was going crazy over at the time it premiered. Now seems like they're laughing at it because tastes changed. Who cares. It's neither the greatest nor the worst track in its day nor is it now.

Bajo California: El limite del tiempo is a slow-paced movie that offers good food for thought. It's mainly about one or two guys wandering through desert terrain and the two guys don't talk all that much or deeply.

It's very reminiscent of a travellogue with moderate spikes of drama and character discovery. I wasn't bored, but I wouldn't blame others if they were.

Ohh, and Alcazar's Mexican-American accent is really fake.

Honourable mentions: Raiders of the Lost Arc (1981). I haven't seen it, but most people agree it should have won best picture in 1981 over Chariots. Honestly almost anything would have been better, even Absence of Malice (1981) (which I did see).

Marvelous amalgam of ambient sound, pithy dialogue (occasionally betrayed by poor subtitling), craggy faces, craggier landscapes, and an unerring sense of concise communication. The comparison to Wenders is apt, particularly something like Kings of the Road. Only this is much less about the art of film and much more real. I feel that I'm failing to explain what makes this film so remarkable, because it is more than the great photography, editing, and acting. Truly memorable.

On my own perspective, Bajo California is the top film in this period that we call New Mexican Cinema, over some other masterpieces such as Como Agua para Chocolate or Amores Perros among many other great films produced in México in the last 15 years or so.

Bajo California is a movie about roots. Its the story of a chicano artist who finds in a car accident the perfect argument to question himself about his origins, about fertility and about guilt. Damian is traveling when he crosses paths with another penitent who prefers to go walking than to accept Damians lift because he is paying what in Mexico is called "manda", to offer suffering and sacrifice to gods or saints in payment of a petition made.

Damian decides to burn out his truck as a stigma and goes walking all the Baja peninsula. He is paying his own "manda". And he is looking for San Francisco de la Sierra, the little town where his origins are besides some beautiful aboriginal paintings full of mysteries, secrets, connections and knowledge that will heal Damians urgency for answers. Aditionally, his grandmother is buried there and he is looking for his gravestone. "The past is all our deads".

In San Francisco de la Sierra, Damian finds his family. The Arces. One of them, who serves as a guide not only to arrive to the paintings in the top of the mountain but also as a guide for that particular journey that Damian is running towards the answers. Arce has few words, he seems to tell more with his looks and his breathings than with what he says. Arce seems to know more about Damian than what Damian knows himself.

This film is peaceful, it reveals to us the same answers that Damian is getting with the same force as if we were below those paintings. It has a metaphysical breathing that only a Mexican, with his particular concept of sacrifice, can fully identify. We all have guilt in our hearts, and we identify it through Damians journey. We all have origins, but we only notice its real meaning through Damians journey.

This is more than a movie, this is an experience of self healing. It has a deep psychological insight, and I can relate it with a therapy technique that I recently found in my life that its called Family Constelations. I'm not an expert, but if somebody can throw an opinion about this subject it would be deeply interesting.

This movie would not have the same impact without its beautiful visual construction. Lovely images. That one of Damian sitting in the uterus of a Gray Whale skeleton that the assembled in the beach is beautifully stuffed of meanings. Great scenarios and splendid cinematography. There is no need of dialogues, when the sound design is so detailed and precise.

We are in presence of a masterpiece. And it is now on DVD here in Mexico.