It’s obvious Silent Light is going to be a beautifully shot film once you take in the 10 minute opening. It’s one of the most stunning openings you could see – best saved for the big screen. Whilst the images are stunning, they never feel forced, just like the script, a simple story of a family man having an affair with another woman. It’s depth lies in it’s patience and transparency of the characters who hide nothing from their friends and family, or from us, the audience.
Brothers. If you have one you’ll appreciate the sibling rivalry in this Icelandic farmer dry comedy film. Ram’s has got two that hate each other. It’s all because they are both trying to be the best at breeding rams in a very unpopulated valley. There’s only room for one of them. But when serpie (a livestock disease) threatens both their herds, can they come together to keep their heritage alive?
Too Early, Too Late isn’t your typical documentary. Instead of following a person, animal, or political movement, it documents the landscape through a series of long sweeping shots of fields, land, and people. If you’re a people watcher, or someone who likes to sit on a park bench and contemplate the view, you’ll enjoy Too Early, Too Late. It requires patience, an open mind, and some open ears.
The Sole family have farmed fields in the small municipality of Alcarras in Catalonia for generations. However, the wealthy landowner that owns the property has found more profitable ways to use his land, which doesn’t involve farming or what the Sole family wants. He’s looking to destroy the orchards that provide the Sole family’s livelihood to install more profitable solar panels.
What Alcarras does brilliantly is tell a very specific local story in order to highlight how capitalism is affecting not just the Sole family, but the local community and many other people around the globe. It’s set completely in one small municipality in Spain centered one family, all played by non-actors from similar backgrounds to the family on screen, living on one farm. Through the film’s run-time, we get to intimately know each member of the Sole family to understand their life on the farm as well as how they are each affected by the threatening eviction. We see why they love the freedom and independence of farming their own land as well as how they’re pulled apart by an uncertain future. Whilst a multi-family or multi-country film might fail to generate sympathy for it’s characters because of it’s broad scope, Alcarras, in spending time with one family in one region, gives the audience more time and closeness to sympathize with not just them, but everyone affected by capitalism around the world.
The hidden message in Alcarras is that the Sole family’s experience is not isolated to Alcarras, nor Spain. The few short scenes showing the community’s labor strikes, which Quimet and his son join, show that the Sole family’s experiences are not isolated. The priority of progress and profit over personal and community happiness is destroying families across the world.
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