A simple story, well told, can sometimes be the most effective way to make a necessary point. In Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s lean but powerful Utama – which translates to Our Home in Quecha – the power of its message around the devastation of climate change on the world comes from showing that damage in relation to how it affects those who don’t often get their stories told. There is more power and urgency in Utama’s delivery than in something obtusely in your face like Adam McKay’s apocalyptic satire Don’t Look Up, a film that tackles similar messaging about the climate crisis.
In the vast, arid desert of Bolivia, an elderly Quechua couple maintain their peaceful existence. Their lives are simple. Their daily routine of fetching water and spinning llama wool together in silence is undisturbed as they live off the land they reside on. But this world is slowly becoming unwelcoming to their customs and their peaceful way of life. Their village is gradually being abandoned by its residents who are seeking a life that doesn’t require walking miles for water. Virginio (José Calcina) stubbornly continues in the prolonged hope that the rain will come, regardless of his wife Sisa’s (Luisa Quispe) protests about the parched land. Climate change has hit the Bolivian Highlands in director Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s debut feature, which wonderfully combines the tranquility of a fulfilled life with the charged rumination of that life being destroyed by the actions of the West. What follows is a methodical meditation on the importance of maintaining a healthy connection to the land they, and laterally we, rely on, while juxtaposing generational ideology on climate and culture.
The generational element of Utama is introduced with the arrival of the couple’s grandson Clever (Santos Choque), who appears not with a message from his father as the crotchety Virginio declares in native Quechua, but to persuade the two that his way of life, along with rejoining the family that departed for a life cultivated by western ideals, is the best place for them. His arrival, with headphones wrapped around his neck, wearing unsoiled jeans and branded jacket reference the modern society that the couple shy away from.
This review was posted on Jan 8th 2024. Full review linked below.
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