13/08/2024 - Despite its fascinating aesthetics, Pia Marais’ latest feature fails to deliver a compelling tale owing to its confusing writing

A young child called Rebecca miraculously survives a plane crash. Nine years later, her father – US missionary Lawrence (Jeremy Xido) – and Rebecca (now in her teens, portrayed by Helena Zengel) are at the centre of a small community where the girl is believed to be a miracle healer. Her fame seems to spread, but when illegal loggers invade the land belonging to the indigenous people they evangelise, things gradually go awry. This is the premise of Pia Marais’ latest feature, titled Transamazonia [+see also:
trailer
interview: Pia Marais
film profile] and playing in the international competition of this year’s Locarno Film Festival.

Unfortunately, the weakest aspect of this film is its writing. There are several clear incoherencies that lead the viewer to question the credibility of the whole tale. To begin with, it seems rather surreal that, while digging into her past and having full access to the internet, Rebecca has never looked for more information about her late mother or the plane crash. Her father initially seems not to speak Portuguese – his words are interpreted by his right-hand man – but later on in the movie, he proves to be very fluent. Nevertheless, when he ends up confronting the indigenous people protesting against the deforestation of their land, he speaks to them in Portuguese for a while before switching back to English, which is unlikely to be understood by the other party. Rebecca’s recurring nightmares, in which some of her body parts are covered in ants, also lack further development. And there are many more examples that impede us from fully understanding the two lead characters’ motives – in particular, those of Rebecca’s father. The result is that the audience may feel disorientated, with too many questions left unanswered. Besides this, the less-than-original angle of the “white saviour” trope adds little spice or originality, as we have seen many, better, cinematic depictions of it in the past.

On a positive note, technically speaking, the picture is masterfully crafted and visually fascinating, even though the cinematography by Mathieu de Montgrand seems at times to pertain to a much more mystical, otherworldly tale than that which Marais’ film ends up being. A similar thing could be said of Lim Giong’s score, which is certainly eerie and engaging, but is attached to an unconvincing plot. Moreover, the main cast does a fair job, too, despite the evident lack of character development. Helena Zengel is magnetic, and Jeremy Xido possesses the right physique du rôle for the portrayal of a distraught man who gradually loses confidence and touch with reality. Meanwhile, Sabine Timoteo’s talent isn’t fully exploited, and one might also question why a Swiss actress should be the best fit to play a local nurse working somewhere in the Amazon forest.

The general feeling is that of a script – and a film – that received way too many diverse inputs and ended up in its current form as the result of a compromise made between different parties. What gets lost along the way, however, is a clear vision that would have kept all of these ambitious elements together, forming a more compelling, intelligible narrative.

Transamazonia was produced by French outfits Cinéma Defacto, Gaïjin and Aldabra Films, and was co-produced by Germany’s Pandora Film Produktion, France’s Point Productions, Taiwan’s Volos Films, France’s Vitamine C, Brazil’s O Par, Cabocla Filmes and Tigresa & Matizar Filmes, US- and Japan-based Cinema Inutile, Hong Kong’s Moonduckling Films, Malaysia’s Jazzy Pictures, Germany’s WDR/ARTE, Arte Cofinova and Switzerland’s RTS. The Party Film Sales is selling it internationally.