How Much Further? [Que tan lejos?] (*½)

Directed by: Tania Hermida
Starring: Tania Martinez, Cecilia Vallejo, Pancho Aquirre, Fausto Miño
Seen: August 27th 2009

*½ Out of ****

I was afforded the opportunity to see this odd little film at a Latin American and Caribbean film festival at a local art-house cinema, and I know that I will be one of only a handful of people in South Africa who will ever get the chance to see it. Not that that is such a big deal on this particular film though.

The movie starts out with an introduction of Esperanza (Martinez) while she gets off a plane and goes into the ladies room to freshen up. The introduction momentarily reminds of Amelie, telling of Esperanza’s birthdate, full name, family issues, etc. this same trend is followed for each of the other two main characters introduced during the run of the movie. The next character up for introduction is Tristeza (Vallejo), a young girl who hears that her boyfriend is doing something she doesn’t agree with in a town on the other side of Ecuador, and she decides to leave for Cuenca immediately.

Getting on the bus she is seated next to Esperanza, also on her way to Cuenca. There is a national strike on, however, and the bus is stopped before long, with Tristeza so desperate to reach Cuenca that she decides to get of the bus and start walking with the idea of hitchhiking. Since Esperanza writes for a tourism publication, she ups and leaves with Tristeza, and the two start discussing Tristeza’s motivations for wanting to reach Cuenca so soon.

Along the way, and out of the smog, comes Jesus (Aquirre), a loner in his late fifties, also en route to Cuenca, also on foot because of the strike. Jesus is on the way to Cuenca to sprinkle his grandmother’s ashes in the river there, and he has only the urn and a small bag with him – a bit of a drifter it seems. The three are eventually picked up by a young man on his way to Cuenca for a wedding, and it soon becomes apparent that Andres (Miño) is relatively insane, as he stops the car, jumps out with a flag, and runs around the car upon hearing his team score a goal on the radio.

While small things keep happening on the way, nothing really happens through the entire film, and you sit and wonder what the true motivation is for making this film apart from showing some of the effect the politics in Ecuador has on its people. The two girls are drawn very close by circumstances, but the viewer senses that after theses events blow over these people will have no motivation to remain friends. Everyone of the group pretty much fails in what they set out to do, and there is no revelation about this at the end of the movie, as if it’s trying to say that sometimes not everything works out by seeming to not work out in itself. The movie felt unresolved, and I don’t believe I would have been worse off never having seen it. Odds are you never will…