Regarding 'Eureka' (2023), the new film by Lisandro Alonso premiered in Mar del Plata 2023

BY JERÓNIMO CASCO

NOVEMBER 28, 2023, 12.27 PM | UTC-GMT -3

Regarding 'Eureka' (2023), the new film by Lisandro Alonso premiered in Mar del Plata 2023

An indigenous man calls his ancestors from the seashore with a song. He bids farewell to the force of water by climbing a hill and watching a nun carrying a cowboy. To my surprise, that cowboy is played by Viggo Mortensen…

The nun leaves him somewhere with the excuse that “it is the furthest she can take him.” This cowboy has to go to a small town to take revenge for the disappearance of her daughter since he believes she was murdered.

Moments later, the same nun arrives at the small town and gloats with another man about how she could have taken the cowboy there, all between laughter and small displays of affection between the two. The cowboy, whose name we do not know (well implemented western code) arrives in town and settles in a room after killing the man who rented them. He waits patiently for the moment when he can break into the sheriff's office and exact his revenge? The next day he does it, and when he is about to kill the sheriff, the daughter appears...

Father and daughter duel, and at the moment when there seems to be a tragic outcome, we actually understand that this whole story was actually part of what a police officer was watching on a television in her home. The obvious question immediately arises: what? Well, one might well think that this will have some kind of relationship with what is going to be told to us next, but no.

WHY ‘EUREKA DOESN’T WORK?

The new film by Argentine director Lisandro Alonso is nonsense (in the bad sense of the word when we talk about cinema, for good nonsense I refer to what was written a few days ago about ‘Daaaaaalí!’, the strangest film of the year) narrative, disjointed, quasi-dreamlike that claims much more than it manages to encompass. In a post-screening talk at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival where some questions and answers were asked, the director clarified that he included this Western in the film because he “really wanted to make a Western.” Okay, that's a lazy answer.

As a spectator, I believe in cinema as an art that demands perhaps much greater attention than the rest. There is a pact between the audience and the work where mutual respect and esteem must coexist. But sometimes, cinema puts us on the ropes, testing our patience. This can be a good and even constructive thing, but what happens when it feels disrespectful?

In the second narrative "block" of Eureka we find ourselves faced with the story of a policewoman who lives in a city where aboriginal communities prevail that coexist in a very violent environment. A teenage witness of this racial violence, who in turn lives with this police woman, goes to her grandfather's house in search of help and comfort, and the grandfather offers her a tea with some herbs that will relax her...

What follows this moment is a (please read carefully) ten-minute uninterrupted shot of the teenager sitting inside grandpa's house, sipping tea every two minutes, wanting to cry, and so on. Not only as a spectator but as a person supposes that this scene can generate something inside, right? But, are we really facing the construction of a story with enough narrative and emotional strength for our retinas to tolerate this unnecessary shot? What is the director's intention? What does he want or try to convey to me?

Immediately afterwards, the teenager disappears to transform into a kind of pelican, leave her grandfather's house and fly. The grandfather, who was outside the home, says goodbye to the bird/granddaughter. This touch of magical realism fails from one's own understanding of the codes of the subgenre. Experimental art? What is the purpose? Should I sit down and watch Alonso's films without thinking about anything and just trying to feel, when the only thing it makes me feel is uncertainty mixed with helplessness? Could it be that his films exist because they really All he wants is to make us feel that way?

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