Unfortunately Tremors carries the same name as a much more famous B-movie monster film from Hollywood. However, whilst they’re vastly different, they do share one thing in common: they’re both tongue-in-cheek comedies. Instead of laughing at the absurd huge worm like monsters in the 1990’s American version, you can laugh at the absurd response to the outing of a closeted gay man embedded in an upper class family life in Guatemala. It’s fun watching their stiff upper lips curl in long periods melodramatic weeping. The extremist gay conversion therapy that Pablo’s devout catholic family force him to attend to keep them together takes the satire to another level. All we can do is enjoy the levels the family goes to in order to hide their shame. Pablo’s out-and-proud lover is the only sane person in the film and watches Pablo’s family bewildered like us as it slowly disintegrates.
Anishoara starts with the most unique scene of the whole film. A charismatic man tells the mythical origin story of the Sky Lark in a close up shot with him looking directly at the camera. The story is about a beautiful princess who had suitors lined up for her from across the country. Instead of choosing one of the princes, she chose to love the sun and raced across the land and sea to be with him. But when the sun fell in love with her and embraced her, she burned to ashes and fell back down to earth. Devastated by her fate, the sun decided to reincarnate her as a Sky Lark; a bird that is known for flying vertically before falling back to earth as if it’s trying to reach the sun.
Anishoara a 15 year old is the movie’s Sky Lark. Just like the Princess in the myth, she has suitors lining up to be her partner. There’s a farm boy that teaches her to drive the tractor and a creepy old German tourist that also tries his luck. Instead, she chooses a typical mysterious bad boy named Dragosh that takes her around the country on his motorbike. However, just as the princess was destined to a doom of trying to get close to her love, Anishoara appears destined to chase after Dragosh without getting close to him.
However, her suitors and Dragosh unintentionally change her future, perhaps for the better. Each one of them gives her a gift which helps her to escape from the rural town. The farm boy teaches her how to drive – a method of escape. The old German leaves his binoculars – a tool for her to see outside of the bubble she lives in. Dragosh takes her to the sea, revealing that life exists outside of her town. She uses what she learns from her relationships to seek a new life away from her unchanging home town. Elsewhere she may have the chance to determine her own life. In her escape, she also breaks free from the myth of the Sky Lark.
What to Watch Next
If you’re looking for more films that take place in rural settlements that feel like they’re from another era, check out North Macedonia’s Honeyland and Lebanon’s Yara.
For more films about women trying to escape from their current lives check out Nevia from the streets of Napoli and Mustang from rural Turkey.
Or if you’d like to see more understated films about women chasing after lost relationships, watch Uski Roti, an Indian film about a woman waiting for her unfaithful husband to return, of When the Tenth Month Comes featuring a woman hoping for her husband to return from war.
Uski Roti is the antithesis of your typical Bollywood film. Instead of bombastic musical numbers and extravagant costumes and decor, Uski Roti‘s rural setting is banal and empty. There’s minimal action as the characters are plagued by having too much time; the wife occupies herself with domestic work and waiting, whilst the husband kills time busing around the country spending time with different lovers to keep from boredom. Both characters seem compelled to live out of a duty rather than because of their own happiness which is reflected in the slow pace of the film. For those with patience, Uski Roti is a portrait of the downtrodden of the world – those condemned by poverty and the patriarchy to a life of nothingness.
If you’re looking for a Madagascan film which documents a barber over the course of a few years, Nofinofy is the film for you. It’s mostly a humble slice-of-life movie that depicts the everyday nature of Romeo’s profession. But as one of Romeo’s friends mentions, his job is an honorable one; every day customers entrust him with their heads. But more than that, his customers also loan him their ears. Throughout each haircut, he gives his young customers unsolicited pieces of advice to help them through life, and for his older customers, he’s allowed to converse as he might to old friends, which gives him temporary relief from the burdens the government imposes on his barber shop. His dream of owning his own shop is repeatedly delayed by a city council that forces him to relocate every couple of months. His ever-moving barber shop mirrors the ever-changing city governments.
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