Raíz takes place at the time of the qualification for the Football World Championship in Russia 2018, when only a few matches separate the nationnal team of Peru from qualification. All what we see in this film is already recent history. The film takes place in the Peruvian Andes. The boy Feliciano is part of a community of Alpaca herder. Most of this indigene community earns a living from selling Alpaca wool. But minor companies are still getting their hands on this land.
The wild and breathtaking beautiful mountain landscape show already signs of disgrace and destruction. The Alpaca herder are already divided in a group who is willing to sell their land and a group who resists. Most of these people fear that their traditional way of life, their culture is threatened by the miner companies. The presence of the miners are visible in scars in this landscape already caused by them. The landscape, how it is presented in stunning cinemascope images appears for now like one of the last paradises on earth.
It really does not matter that the film is on the surface for now a beautiful drama appropriate for the very young audience. There is enough humor (Feliciano named his favorite Alpaca w”Ronaldo”). An old transistor radio is the only contact to the world outside. For watching a football match at TV, the people have to go to the nearest town. Into this seemingly “Feel good” film there is a very disturbing moment when the herders learn that some Alpaca´s are killed, probably by henchmen of the miner company for intimidating this community. It does not really matter how the film concludes, these traces of destruction this threat to a community which represents an own culture is an obvious wound in this incredible beauty.
The reason I do not get this film out of my mind, is not easy to explain. There is something which reminds me in the time when we were told fables and fairy tales in our childhood. Even though most of these modified fairy tales appropriate for children have happy endings, but the scaring parts of a fairy tale remains nevertheless as much in my memory than the enchanted happy ending. The tricky thing with cinema is, that it presents very often paradises but as well the idea that this specific paradise has already perished and the images wee see are only projections of a world which doe not exist anymore. Not only are the traces of destruction in In Raíz visible, it feels like Becerra wants us to see them. Raíz is a film of two opposite forces.The first one is the almost solemn evocation of the natural beauty of the landscape, this community and the solidarity of its people which keeps it together. The other force is the permanent resonating idea that this beauty is in danger to vanish, if it has not vanished already.
It does not matter how the film ends. When the last image disappear into the ending credits (a cinematic ritual and a much underrated aspect in the art of filmmaking) it can sometimes be as intense like we see the very last time a sunset. One has to choose on its own if one is enchanted by this images of incredible beauty or if one feels like mourning about the images as a reflex of a world which has already perished. For me, it is just the tension between the two opposite aspects which made it unforgettable. Anyway, Raíz by Franco Garcia Becerra is a fascinating piece of cinema.
Rüdiger Tomczak
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