The vivisection of a landscape: sombre black and white images unfurl panoramas of a scraggy mountain region. Narrow paths winding through the Andes, crosses decorating the wayside. The ruins of a barracks appear, once housing recruits who departed on a last exercise and were caught in a snow storm. Fragments of real live shots collide with extremely reduced animations. The film’s emulsion begins to pulse and dissolve. Sudden lightning destroys every trace of narrative. This is not the reconstruction of an event that happened in 2005, but the evocation of a nightmare of coldness and death that was irrevocably inscribed into the landscape.
Director Roberto Collío deftly and brilliantly experiments with different materials to evoke graphical analogies. He started out as a sound designer; so on the subtly wrought soundtrack the lonely death of a young soldier finds its long, sad echo in the diminishing sounds of a whistle.

Cornelia Klauß

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Golden Dove Animated Documentary 2014