Today evening the first movie was Altiplano, a Belgium film about the struggles of people living in Peru in a region known as Altiplano. The story is about two women and their losses. One who is living in a remote Andean village with her mother and brother, she is working as a caretaker of Virgin mother in a local church, waiting for her fiancée to return with blessed water from the mountains. The other, a Belgium War Photographer who lost her husband who worked in the Andean Village as a Cataract Surgeon as part of an NGO.
Through the movie, you could see the strong Spanish (European) influence in the lives and beliefs of these natives in remote Peru even after nearly two century of independence from their Spanish rulers. The landscape is breathtaking and the camera (the 360 panoramic technique employed in few scenes) has captured it brilliantly. The director employs a technique of having few “Ghost” characters and masked men around the people in scenes to amplify the emotions and the storytelling, initially, I found it confusing to follow the story but began to appreciate it as the movie progressed. The story tells you about the ills of mindless mineral extraction (in this case it was Mercury) and resulting exploitation by a country of its own people who have no power to voice against it.
Altiplano (Fragments of Grace)