Film: Patagonia
Year of production: 2010
UK Release date: 11th July 2011
Distributor: Verve
Certificate: 15
Running time: 118 mins
Director: Marc Evans
Starring: Matthew Rhys, Marta Lubos, Nahuel Perez Biscayart, Nia Roberts, Duffy
Genre: Drama
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Argentina/UK
Language: Welsh/Spanish
Review by: Karen Rogerson
Director Marc Evans’ multilingual film – in Welsh and Spanish, with a smattering of English and Polish – explores the connections between modern day Wales and the descendants of the Welsh émigrés who settled in Patagonia in the nineteenth century. In parallel stories, characters from both countries undertake journeys across the world, during which they explore their sense of history and belonging.
In Patagonia, elderly Cerys is sent, by her family, to Buenos Aires to undergo a cataract operation for her rapidly deteriorating sight, chaperoned by Alejandro, the teenage son of her neighbour. Hijacking her family’s plans, Cerys instead uses her savings and cash raised from selling her wedding presents to fly with Alejandro to Wales to find the farmhouse where her mother grew up. Sulky Alejandro thinks she has gone mad, but isn’t strong willed enough to stop her. Cerys’ only clues for finding the farmhouse are a photograph of her family from 1927, and the poetic name of the farm itself - Nant Briallu, or ‘stream of daffodils’.
Their search takes them from the south to the north of the country, where they encounter warmth and kindness from some locals and cynical exploitation by others. Alejandro encounters the seedier side of modern urban life in Wales when he goes for a night out in Cardiff. Here, he first meets the character played by Duffy in a nightclub, before she collapses and is taken away by ambulance. Their paths cross again towards the end of the story, as Cerys’ search comes to a close.
In the parallel storyline, Gwen and Rhys are a Welsh couple in their thirties whose journey takes them in the opposite direction from Wales to South America. He’s been given an assignment to photograph the Welsh chapels of Patagonia, symbolic of the pioneering spirit and fortitude of the émigrés who had set up their communities there under conditions of great hardship. Gwen agrees to accompany Rhys, but it’s obvious from very early on that her commitment to him is ambivalent. When they meet Mateo, the handsome guide hired to drive them to the sites of the various chapels, it’s clear that jealousy and infidelity will uncover the unexpressed tensions in Rhys and Gwen’s relationship…
Of the two stories, that of Cerys and Alejandro is far more engaging. Her serene acceptance of her diabetes and deteriorating eyesight contrasts humorously with teenage Alejandro’s nervy restlessness – “I need to avoid all stress”, he says, “I don’t have a strong metabolism.” There’s a touching vulnerability to their efforts to track down the mythical farmhouse; the two unlikely companions staring out at the alien Welsh environment with a constant smile, on Cerys’ part, and wide eyed, anxious naivety on Alejandro’s part. The winding roads and rain soaked green hills of rural Wales hold their own against the more obvious drama of the Patagonian setting as a poetic backdrop to Cerys’ emotional journey. Marta Lubos’ wonderfully expressive face conveys an endearing sweetness as Cerys, and the growing understanding between her character and Alejandro is believable and moving. As their story comes to a resolution, Duffy’s character reappears, a competent performance as a slightly raddled escapee from urban life. By this point, the story has become rather overlong and over sentimental. Its outcome is predictable but, as a story standing by itself, it’s affecting and quietly successful.
Back in South America, the Patagonian story is disappointing, so much so that the heart sinks every time the film cuts back to it. Director of photography Robbie Ryan crafts some beautiful, sun soaked shots of the barren flatlands, with the jagged snow covered peaks of the Andes soaring behind them. But, frankly, any decent cinematographer could hardly fail to produce amazing shots given such a stunning location, and the triteness of the story and unlikeable characters make the visual drama of the film seem just another card being played by the filmmakers to try to persuade the audience of the story’s emotional intensity and depth.
Gwen is harbouring a secret, which is uncovered towards the end of the film, but it is predictable from its start. While Gwen’s character comes across as self-indulgent and unsympathetic, Rhys’ emotions are so clunkily conveyed that you can almost see the wheels turning inside his head prior to the dropping of each entirely anticipated penny.
Having prefaced the film with an explanation that the Welsh colony in Patagonia was settled by émigrés in the mid 19th century, seeking somewhere they could speak their own language and follow their own religion without persecution, surprisingly little is made of the particular character and history of Patagonia. It’s almost as if the filmmakers have transposed a bland, soapy style storyline of thirty-something urbanites to an alien location to imply some unwarranted complexity to the film’s story, while the characters’ self-absorption makes the setting too much of an irrelevance.
In fairness, there are little offshoots of incidental characters and colour which offer some distraction to the main storyline, such as the short scene of the asada (barbeque), which gives a sense of the freedom and passionate love of life in this almost frontier style existence, or the Falklands War veteran who becomes Rhys’ drinking partner for an evening. The unexpected appearance at a graveside of men singing a male voice choir harmony gives sudden emotional depth, expressing longing and sorrow, which Rhys and the veteran are unable to voice themselves. But, overall, the Patagonian story is disappointingly uninfused with any sense of what its history might signify to Rhys and Gwen, or how the dual Argentinean/Welsh origins of its community informs the film’s overall themes of belonging and identity.
A film of two halves, in more ways than one. The story of Cerys and Alejandro is slow paced yet sweet and touching, its gentle tempo reflected in the muted greens of the Welsh landscape. In the Patagonian story, the reduction of the country to a metaphorical backdrop for the self-indulgent soul searching of the European characters leaves a bad taste in the mouth. KR
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