#slaff

Discovered with a smoking gun and all three of her dead parents, Sugar has a very short window to convince the authorities she didn’t do it.

Set amidst a small Cuban village, a decades-old love triangle and Revolution-era Cuba, Mantis Nest is a lot less about a murder than it’s opening suggests.

A mystery that might typically find itself on an instalment of Law and Order soon giving way to very extended flashback sequences, these portions quickly take over as the film’s raison d’etre. Recalling the stages of Elena’s romance with Emilio and Tomas and their own fraught roles in the nation’s social upheaval, Mantis Nest is first and foremost very romantic.

The core story not so significantly lending itself to classically romantic ideations, the imagery resplendent throughout overwhelmingly accomplishes this end. Whether it be characters leaping in a lake, lounging by the seaside or otherwise on a patio overlooking this most significant era in Cuban history, the quieter, contemplative moments where the film allows itself to rest on eye-popping stills are among Mantis Nest’s best.

Contrasting with the more grounded sequences surrounding the characters’ later deaths, the black and white flashbacks adopt a heightened, at times surrealist approach to proceedings altogether in terms of staging, dialogue and importantly blocking. While a few scenes in isolation could too have proffered the idealised, dreamlike quality evidently intended by the approach, indeed a tone difficult to sustain; the proliferation of sequences operating at this register throughout begin to clash somewhat with the soon increasingly interspersed and shorter, bleaker recalls to the characters’ futures.

Moreover drawing attention to the disparity through the flashbacks’ not infrequent, heavy use of symbolism-driven dialogue to convey the leads’ metaphorical resonance within the broader events of early 1960’s Cuba, the very deliberate choice to position Tomas and Emilio within different socio-economic spheres will likewise be apparent.

Visually sumptuous and bearing a fairly strong hook to keep audiences intrigued, Mantis Nest’s imagery will no doubt linger in the mind.

Mantis Nest screens as part of the Sydney Latin American Film Festival on Saturday September 9 at 9PM at Dendy Opera Quays and Saturday September 21 at 8PM at Casula Powerhouse

Those who fall from grace can yet fall farther.

Muralla (Fernando Arze Echalar), once a celebrated Bolivian goalkeeper, now desperate to support his ailing son turns to a life of irredeemable, unthinkable crime.

There aren’t too many films that focus on human trafficking and it’s awful, real life consequences. Regretfully persistent in parts of the world, the latest from Bolivian filmmaker Rodrigo Patino dives right in.

Best of all for Echalar’s performance, there’s rare a scene where his strained visage doesn’t punctuate the already confronting proceedings with a hardened, tragic sincerity without which this film would not nearly have so resonated. One especially moving sequence in a hospital, together with his early and later decisions to travel down increasingly dark paths, are very moving for his performance imparting ever-impacting pain.

Effective moreover for the regular reminders of his once lauded past as a pro footballer, the heavy sports metaphor which pervades this feature, save a still affecting image on which the film rests, is not nearly so potent as the lead performance or any herein.

Littered with varied visual and stylistic approaches to the drama and more physically demanding sequences, traditionally staged scenes are quickly interchanged with more surrealist or point of view orientations. These moments are too followed by several likewise distinct encounters where rigs affixed to Echalar’s foreground track Muralla as he hastily ventures forth; a practice Guy Ritchie has been fond of as of late.

The styles, if conveying a distinct flare and fairly mixing it up quite a bit, never bear the consistency  or consideration evident in the lead’s reliably more grounded approach to this escalating series of events.

Featuring a character and set of circumstances that merit exposure, the rendering as interesting as it is in parts emerged simply no way near the level of such an accomplished headliner.

Goalkeeper/Muralla screens as part of the Sydney Latin American Film Festival on Saturday September 7