“The word Jauja references an impossible place, an utopia, a place sought by conquistadores and desired by those who look for peace or riches or simply the fulfillment of their wishes. It is at the same time a non-place, something hidden between the rocks and the desert that is traversed by an old soldier, the Patagonia that seems to swallow the characters, that distances them, places them apart, minimizes them amongst such an intricate geography, intricacies and rock slides that never seem to end and that give every shot a certain texture, as if we’re looking at a city from above, where every crack, bump or formation creates a hidden topography, as if Jauja were hiding in each crack and it wanted to come out.
“Or maybe Jauja is not much more than a split off place, like when Raúl Ruiz said that every shot in a film was a new movie, in each shot of Jauja we’re being revealed a new dimension of what it means or what awaits to those that explore the place that seems to be the cinematic equivalent of the City of the Caesars or El Dorado that the conquistadores looked for. As if in every shot in its vertical depth could be put on top of the next one, like colored veils that one after the other cover something hidden, but at the same time form a new color.
“The filmography of Lisandro Alonso has been characterized for framing its characters in a second, third and even the furthest place of the depth of the shot, where they are the center of attention, but at the same time so precise and found, that the eye of the spectator tends to wander through the rest of the frame, and it is in Jauja, more than in any other film of his, where the landscape is fundamental. The Argentinian Patagonia resists that ocular search, the desert covered with little plants and herbs, trees, bushes, and it is there that we could consider a plotline that is hidden, it’s in the search behind the rocks, the desperate and failed pursuit of the father, who looks for his lost daughter, but he just ends up losing himself, the landscape swallows him, the geography corrodes him, he collapses and transforms himself in a new road landmark.
“Nevertheless, the film itself is more than just about the search of the father, as the search itself, as it progresses, is transformed into something dispossessed of passion, something rundown to a necessity, some sort of social obligation, where the roles of a society that is being built or trying to grow in a place where they don’t exist, where the emptiness of the scenery (though full) gives the signal of a futile and dispassionate absence that doesn’t require to be filled by more than the act itself of exploration of the place.
“Curiously it’s just in the same shot where we note a presence that fills the shot: creatures with character that seem to fill the space that’s always been empty for the most part. The sea wolves invade the framing, as if we now finally understand that society and what has been tried to be constructed, these efforts of structuration, and historical application in which the plot supports itself in its first minutes have been minutely and gradually deconstructed, so when the strange last minutes of Jauja run, they don’t cause discomfort, as they are part of a natural causation. Jauja is a searched and dreamt place just because there are no humans there, there’s no society; there’s no rules, it’s a paradise, but maybe it’s just for sea wolves.” ~ Jaime Grijalba
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