97 min
7
2015
Brazil
Alfonso is an old farmer who has returned home to tend to his son, who is gravely ill. He rediscovers his old house, where the woman who was once his wife still lives, with his daughter-in-law and grandson. The landscape that awaits him resembles a wasteland. Vast sugar cane plantations surround the house, producing perpetual clouds of ash. 17 years after abandoning them, Alfonso tries to fit back in and save his family.
Overview
Reviews
Reno wrote:**Not far from losing the birthplace of human civilisation.**
Not everybody's pick of the year. Everybody does not know this film even exist. This is the director's ambitious project, to depict on the screen the world he had come from. So it is much an awareness film about struggling rural society. Usually critics favour this kind of film. But not to be watched for the entertainment purpose. Surely you will be bored to death. This is a challenging film to watch that tests your patience. Even I had a slight trouble finish watching it, but at the end I'm satisfied for it is what it is.
Average film's runtime, so if you have been focused since the beginning, particularly without any interference, then that's good. You will get the characters and their condition, which is most important in this film. There's no complication to understand it. It is a simple story, but very realistic portrayal like a documentary film without any background commentary. Centres on the falling rural economy and how people are coping with it. I think this is a very essential film for todays people from big cities to understand the situation of the other side of the human civilisation.
The film does not focus on entire village, but follows a small family. It is a place where they all depended on the sugar cane that grown in the field. And it is about a harvest season, everybody's working hard, but not paid enough for their effort. A man who had left the place and family behind a long ago returns. The purpose of the visit is his son who is very sick. So from his perspective the film reveals why he had left the place and the trouble the villagers facing, economically as well as environmentally.
> ❝I couldn't stay here and see all of this disappear before my very eyes.❞
The message was loud and clear. The film does not simply shows sympathy, but falling apart countryside due to multiple issues including poverty and pollution. There's no separately layered narration to highlight them, but the family this story is based on revolves around most of those matters. I would say, it was a good writing, keeping in order and going after big topic. The director did a wonderful job. I would also say watching a film like this is definitely not a waste of time. But how far it reaches and people come to realise will be a big question. Because such small films are easily ignored globally.
When we discuss about harming the environment, it is always cities and industries are blamed. But the truth is every corner of the earth where humans have settled down is causing the disruption in the order of nature. This film is one of the good examples of getting rid of cliché in such theme and trying to be honest. The amount of disturbance in nature might be less, but the outcome is the same. I think such film should be recognised in the bigger platforms. This is the age we live in where awareness needed about the awareness films. What we have become.
A heartbreaking family tale, as well as their concerned environment, the film covered two topics so brilliantly. Well performed actors and I liked the locations. Even though the places are polluted, especially during the harvest, such quietness is very relaxing. I do remember in my childhood during visiting grandparents in their village, sitting lazily after having a lunch under the shades of a tree on a hot summer day was so cool experience. Now we're losing that, and I think that's the closest what this title means. The final frontier, the edge of world where humans and nature meets. Like I said the film is not for everyone, watching capacity wise, but its concern everybody. If you are okay with slow pace narration, then you should try it.
_7/10_
badelf wrote:This film is much deeper than it appears to be. On the surface, it looks like a struggling poor family in a rural setting. Look again. On one level it is a family with their own set of relational problems. Like Tolstoy said, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
But this particular unhappy family is set against the socio-economic background of an impersonal agri-business. The agri-business, not only complicates their unhappiness, but also, slowly murders it's victims.
It is not a huge, impossible leap of imagination to cast this story onto the laborers of Amazon or Uber - workers that slave for hours without bathroom breaks for ultra-rich, off-screen masters. The parallel is painfully present in this film.
Never mind the intentional long shots of endless sugar cane fields that destroyed a once present beauty. Never mind the dark lighting of the family that remained. An important trivia here: the English translation of the title is wrong (imho). Sombra also means shadow. This family lives in a shadow. The title should be "Land and Shadow". But the shadow of what? That's what makes this film socially significant.
badelf wrote:This film is much deeper than it appears to be. On the surface, it looks like a struggling poor family in a rural setting. Look again. On one level it is a family with their own set of relational problems. Like Tolstoy said, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
This particular unhappy family is set against the socio-economic background of an impersonal agri-business. The agri-business, not only complicates their unhappiness, but also, slowly murders it's victims.
It is not a huge, impossible leap of imagination to cast this story onto the laborers of Amazon or Uber - workers that slave for hours without bathroom breaks for ultra-rich, off-screen masters. The parallel is painfully present in this film.
Never mind the beautiful photography of endless sugar cane fields that destroyed a once present beauty. Never mind the the great character acting. Never mind the dark lighting of the family that remained. An important trivia here: the English translation of the title is wrong (imho). Sombra also means shadow. This family lives in a shadow. The title should be "Land and Shadow". But the shadow of what? That's what makes this film socially significant.
