The first thing we see on the screen is a white block of ashlar being drilled by someone. A simple and powerful shot. These types of scenes are what make up Open Sky, by Felipe Esparza, best Peruvian film of the 27th Lima Film Festival 2023. It is not about a great plot, but about a great handling of symbols, themes and a way of narrating that It delights the viewer with its composition. The story can be summarized in the phantom bond that a father and a son have from the deceased mother/wife. The father works with devotion chopping ashlar blocks and the son digitizes Arequipa churches to upload them to the web. There are almost no dialogues, the light is natural, so the feature film is positioned close to documentary.
Almost the entire film revolves around one of the most beautiful and particular places in our country: the ashlar quarries in Arequipa. The space shows us the work of the father, who is totally dedicated to chopping these white blocks of volcanic stone. The spaciousness, the whiteness and the type of delivery create an atmosphere of religious devotion. The quarries have the spaciousness, silence and echo of the cathedrals or churches that the son films. There is a link there. The young man is also devoted to his work. However, this depends on the technology that the father—being from another generation—does not use. Thus, they show us two paradigms. Two ways of working and giving oneself to two spaces that are shown to us as sacred. The father intervenes in space with his hands, the son with drones, cameras and computers.
Esparza, furthermore, seems to play with the similarity of spaces. The son works on the computer, with the three-dimensionality of the walls and ceilings of the churches. With the help of a program, he generates the virtual version of all the gold leaf decorations of the altars that he captures. The father, in a similar way, works with the textures of the ashlar walls. Everything in the film is very tactile.
YOU CAN SEE: A truly contemporary magazine: Ojo dorado
On the other hand, both spaces are shown as touristic. The son produces this content obviously to spread the churches as cultural and tourist spaces. The father does not work with tourism, but he does observe the tourism that occurs in the quarries. Exquisite shots show a tour guide speaking in English and a series of local tourists taking photos with the sculptures that some make with the volcanic stone. There is a trivialization of the space that is also shown to be sacred, similar to what happens when a church is digitized.
The relationship between both characters is ghostly. The only thing that reveals their bond to us is the character of the mother/wife. We are not clear about the story of her death, but we do see her relatives visiting the altar of her tomb, also located in the quarries. There is a photo of her. However, the photo is burned by the light and has completely erased the woman's face. The resource is interesting, because, by eliminating her personal characteristics, the photo becomes more of a symbol than an individual, a motif that unites the characters, but does not become a character. We know nothing about the mother other than her role as her absence. Thus, the mother functions mainly as a bridge between the two without becoming entirely a story.
The film is ultimately about that, the bridge between both characters. Not about the history that unites them, but about what makes them similar despite the distances. Esparza has managed to portray the similarities between two generations based on the almost religious cult of work. Each one has their tools, their times and their spaces. Open Sky shows us the daily life and silent intimacy of two ordinary Peruvians, in a poetic way. It is a piece that portrays the reality of two individuals without the need that national cinema usually has for a political discourse. Cielo Abierto does not show interest in great stories with great characters, but rather in the small scenes that most Peruvians experience.
Distinctions
- World premiere: 2023. Rotterdam International Film Festival, Bright Future Section (Netherlands)
- 2023. Moscow International Film Festival (Russia)
- 2023. Curacao International Film Festival (Brazil)
- 2023. Moskino Cinema Night Film Festivale in Moscow (Russia).
- 2023. Best Peruvian film of the 27th Lima Film Festival (Peru)
#Open #sky #work #devotion
