An intriguing and lightly surreal account of one Colombian mother’s obsessive search for her missing son.
For many, grief is a cryptic crossword clue for which there’s never quite enough cells for the answer to properly fit – yet it’s a conundrum that you must adapt to and learn how to live with. For meek Colombian factory worker Martha (Jenny Nava), the search for answers – and for justice – has become an obsession that consumes her every waking hour. She will not rest until she knows the whereabouts of her missing son, one of thousands who were “disappeared” during the recent era of domestic oppression. Indeed, her search has now rolled over to the half-decade point, yet she shows no sign of flagging, happy to post her other young son with her mother as she hops around the country to take part in digs, exhumations and collective therapy sessions.
It’s apt that Juan Miguel Gelacio is Esteban Hoyos García named after a temporal designation, as one of its main focus points is on the time that Martha expends on her endless journey for truth. Much of the film is spent with Martha just staring into the middle distance, sometimes descending into waking nightmares, as she heads off on yet another all-night coach journey into the abyss, following up on her latest lead. Her newest – and potentially most intriguing – hot tip comes from a woman named Sandra whose own search has been continuing for an epic 28 years. She tells of an opportunity to commune with the dead, and invites Martha along for the ride – as long as she is able to stump up a tidy wad of cash for various legs of travel across land and water. Has Martha gone mad? Is Sandra selling her snake oil? Or is this a lead that will finally supply her with the answer she is looking for?
Much of the film balances on Nava’s unsmiling central turn as a woman who’s almost pathologically fixated on what she clearly sees as her life’s work. Nothing else really matters, and even her surviving family are little more than a distraction in her endless project. There’s almost a junkie mentality to the way she operates, occasionally allowing her guard down to ask for money to fund her work. Yet as the issue of missing family members is so prevalent in Colombia, most people are sympathetic, and Martha does end up pulling in just enough for her latest and greatest odyssey.
It’s a slow burn film that keeps its cards close to its chest, particularly with regard to whether Martha is caught up chasing an impossible dream. The story sets itself up with a will she/won’t she finale, but cannily gravitates towards a more satisfying and mysterious conclusion, one that skirts the bounds of reality and fantasy.
