Los Muertos

(Lisandro Alonso, Argentina, 2004, 35mm, 73 min)As poetically beautiful as it is effectively disconcerting, Lisandro Alonso's second film, Los Muertos, brims with the richly somber mood and unmatched visual attentiveness that defines the director's oeuvre. After serving thirty years in prison, a grim man named Vargas journeys back through thick jungle and swamp to reunite with the daughter he left behind long ago. A mysterious aura emanates from him, just as it does from the inscrutable depths of the jungle, so that they meld together in a way that blurs the lines of the man's identity. Los Muertos is a deeply contemplative analysis of the intersection of unflinching natural events with the actions produced by man's haunted, haunting psyche.