‘Five Years, Four Months’ Review: Moving Portrait of a Grieving Colombian Mother Demonstrates an Impressive Control of Tension
Popular on Variety At first glance, the film’s aesthetic seems purely realist, documenting the drawn-out processes that make up Martha’s search for the...
Key points
- Popular on Variety At first glance, the film’s aesthetic seems purely realist, documenting the drawn-out processes that make up Martha’s search for the remains of her son, Fabian.
- But Gelacio and García also use these scenes to evoke the sensorial and emotional landscape of Martha’s life.
- Martha is detached from the world, yet always hyper-aware of it, the way traumatized people can be numb and perpetually on their guard at the same time.
- But for Martha, this community isn’t enough.
What happened
Popular on Variety At first glance, the film’s aesthetic seems purely realist, documenting the drawn-out processes that make up Martha’s search for the remains of her son, Fabian. But Gelacio and García also use these scenes to evoke the sensorial and emotional landscape of Martha’s life. Martha is detached from the world, yet always hyper-aware of it, the way traumatized people can be numb and perpetually on their guard at the same time. But for Martha, this community isn’t enough. But even as she appears to enter a seedy and dangerous world of crime, Martha’s journey and her connection with Sandra seem to bring her a feeling of solace at last. But the film truly culminates before that ending, in a devastatingly beautiful scene where Martha talks about her son for the first time.
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