Les routes en février

When Sara was a young girl, her parents emigrated from Uruguay to Canada. Now Sara has returned to visit her paternal grandmother Magda. The trip was planned for both her and her father, but he mysteriously couldn't make it. Both of them have turned out to be economic disappointments. As Magda complains to her friends: What is the point of going to Canada just to work as a waitress? Meanwhile, Sara's distractibility and inability to complete tasks leads to a tragedy.

This is a decent portrait of the split personality of someone away for a long time who is "coming home". Even though she speaks fluent Spanish, everything feels a bit "off". In tone, therefore, it fits with the writer / director's life experiences (I was at a screening with her Q+A). However, the film has too many loose ends for me to enjoy it fully.

The movie opens with Sara, a twentysomething residing in Canada, on the way from Montevideo to visit Magda, her paternal grandmother. Magda lives in a town (really a group of houses) so small and lost in the Uruguayan countryside that the only way to reach her without a car is taking a bus to a nearby town and then waiting for somebody to drive in the right direction.

Nothing much happens on screen. The center of the movie are the conversations between Sara and Magda. Through them we learn something about the family, especially about Sara's father. He died of an unspecified illness and his relations with his daughter and his mother were obviously conflicted, with issues left unresolved. We also hear a passing reference to a brother of Sara. Other hints are nonverbal, such as the rather cool and formal reception of Sara by Magda. There is some action involving Sara's bicycling to a nearby town and connecting with locals.

Director Catherine Jercovic, born in Canada to an Uruguayan mother and a Croatian-Argentinian father grew up in Belgium and Uruguay. She is a filmmaker in Montreal. This is her first feature-length work, and her debut couldn't be more auspicious. She is supported by excellent camerawork by Nicolas Canniccioni. His shots catch the torpor and the harshly contrasting light/shadows of midsummer days as well as the modest interiors of the houses of Magda and her friends, shadowed against the heat. There are images of haunting beauty such as Sara phoning in a darkened room, an abandoned railway depot and Sara riding a bicycle on a dusty road and being slowly overtaken by five horsemen. Music is used sparingly and unobtrusively.

There may be autobiographic elements; the director and her main character Sara have similar family backgrounds and similar last name. I was enchanted by every minute of this movie, and hope for further work from Jercovic.