Feeling incomplete is part of being human. It might be in fact the very thing that gives us an “advantage” over the rest of the species in the animal kingdom. Because we need to fill emotional vacuums, we have gone on to create science and art, and it is this neverending quest for fulfillment that keeps propelling us forward. Two films at this year’s edition of Latinbeat take the concept of search and turn it into poetic ruminations on existence and purpose. Why do we try to solve the mysteries instead of acknowledging them and letting them go?
In Matías Lucchesi’s Natural Sciences the quest occurs in rural Argentina, where the quietly rebellious 12-year-old Lila (Paula Hertzog) decides to go find the father she’s never met. Unfazed by the inclement weather and the limitations of her age, she makes several failed attempts to go on her own until she recruits the reluctant aid of her natural sciences teacher Jimena (Paola Barrientos) who agrees to drive her through the mountains to pursue a lead provided by the girl’s mother.
The two women bond over this journey, but never in the ways one would expect. Judging from their arid relationship, one gets a sense that they have come to terms with the fact that men in their lives are completely unreliable, and that it’s their duty as women to reach a hand to help each other out - the teacher drives, Lila reminds her to eat - Lucchesi’s economic use of dialogue and the unsentimentality with which he approaches Lila’s eventual discovery makes for a strangely touching experience.
This sparse storytelling technique also permeates José Luis Valle’s masterful The Searches, a black and white fable set in Mexico City in which the lives of several strangers become entangled through a series of “chance” events. The film opens with a sequence in which we follow a man as he goes through seemingly mundane tasks - picking up his dry cleaning, putting his dog to sleep - only to return home and take his own life. The terrified scream of his wife (Arcelia Ramírez) after discovering his body might be the “loudest” moment in a film in which every frame seems to uncover new layers.
The woman doesn’t seem to dwell on the reasons behind her husband’s suicide for long - we see Ramírez go from heartbreak to anger and resentment in just a few scenes - and we, along with her, file his suicide under an “ungrateful bastard” category, only to then have our point of view shaken upon meeting the other main character, a man (Gustavo Sánchez Parra) who also lost his family to senseless violence - inflicted by others in this case - who spends his time tracking down the man who stole his wallet. That the man also happens to deliver water bottles to the widow’s house is a coincidence we give little thought to, as we see their short daily interactions materialize into a sad romance sparked by mutual desolation.
As the man’s obsession begins to eat his insides (what is in this wallet that’s so important?) Valle turns his entire film into a space for us to meditate on the things that give our lives meaning. Does it really matter what was in the wallet if it’s something that means so much to another human being? Can we judge the woman’s late husband for putting a gun to his head if we don’t know the nature of his inner turmoils? By relying so much on minimalism, Valle actually delivers one of the smartest Mexican films of the decade, as he invites us to see beyond the limitations imposed on us by plot, to see the contrasts between the way we establish hierarchies on other people’s problems according to their social class and gender, or how we often fail to muster empathy for those we think have it better than we do. More than anything in the film, the searches in the title are the internal ones we’ll undoubtedly go through on our way home from the cinema.
