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| A scene from Por El Camino. |
Sparks-a-flowing
By Don Simpson
This minimalist road movie takes Santiago (Esteban Feune de Colombi), a 30-year-old redheaded Argentinean, across Uruguay from Montevideo to Punta del Este in search of a tract of land he inherited from his deceased parents. Early in his journey, Santiago meets a Belgian woman, Juliette (Jill Mulleady), and they experience the gorgeous Uruguayan countryside together, meeting random locals along the way. Juliette speaks French, Santiago speaks Spanish and English is their common language.
Juliette traveled all the way to Uruguay in search of an old flame who resides in a hippie commune in Rocha, but it is not long before we recognize that she and Santiago have organically developed into more than mere travel companions. Unfortunately, Santiago is totally blind to that revelation; he does not know what he has in Juliette until she is long gone. Santiago is left with the question: How difficult will it be to find a Belgian woman in Rocha?
Writer-director Charly Braun utilizes a very simple narrative structure that is grounded in reality by Bruno Alzaga and Pablo Ramos’ “life caught unawares” cinematography. Por El Camino is as much a piece of ethnographic journalism as it is a love story between a Belgian and an Argentinian in Uruguay. It is readily apparent that Braun is motivated to reveal a wide array of real Uruguayans in their natural habitats, as we observe them via the eyes of his film’s foreign protagonists.
Por El Camino features a beguiling soundtrack that mixes Latin American music with popular Western European artists such as Donovan, Radiohead and Sigur Rós.
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