Morichales
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Un film de Guión, dirección, fotografía Producción Producción ejecutiva Producción asociada Producción en línea Montaje de imagen y diseño de sonido Narración Música original Ilustraciones Fondos
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En la Guayana Venezolana se encuentran grandes reservas de oro escondidas bajo las palmeras de “moriche”, atrayendo multitudes de mineros a ese territorio. Un narrador viaja desde lejanas minas en la selva hasta las riberas del Río Orinoco, intentando comprender la incierta fortuna del minero. Sus reflexiones combinan ilustraciones y pinturas fotoquímicas para trazar un mapa de la minería y comercialización del oro en Venezuela, mientras que cuestiona la relación extractivista del hombre con la naturaleza. Filmado a lo largo de trece años, ‘Morichales’ es un viaje profundo dentro del territorio más disputado del país, inmerso en la ansiosa búsqueda del oro. In Venezuelan Guayana, large gold reserves lie beneath “moriche” palms, attracting miners from across the region. A narrator travels from far-flung mines in the jungle to the banks of the Orinoco River, trying to understand the uncertain fortune of the miner. His reflections combine illustrations and photochemical paintings to draw a map of the mining and commercialization of gold in Venezuela while also questioning humankind’s extractivist relationship with nature. Filmed over the course of thirteen years, ‘Morichales’ is a journey deep into the most disputed territory of the country, immersed in the anxious quest for gold. * Chris Gude’s vivid doc on the ravages and inequalities of ages-long gold mining in Venezuela is startling in its poetry and meticulous in its contextualisation. Mining, and the environmental ravages and hardships exacerbated by resource extraction around the globe, has become a popular subject for documentary filmmaking in an age of depleted nature and the transnational inequalities of capitalism. Chris Gude’s Morichales, which had its world premiere in the International Competition at DOK Leipzig, sparks attention as a particularly deeply considered and poetic treatment of the controversial practice. Here, the metal sought is gold. Gude, who shot the film over thirteen years, immerses us deep in the jungles of southeast Venezuela, where miners have arrived on rafts down the Orinoco for years to seek out once-plentiful deposits of precious metal, their urgency in stark contrast to the slow processes of geology. Plenty of festival slots should follow for a sensitive, vivid and meticulously contextualised depiction of the current ills of the planet, colonialism’s legacy and exploitation in the lesser-examined South American context of the Guayana territory. A fictional narrator (voiced by actor Jorge Gaviria) with a wide view of history and lyrical sense for myth and all of the paradoxes of human labour in this ancient environment of gradual erosion and transformations describes gold mining in Venezuela to us as an anthropological field report but also as a tragic story of survival, fragility and greed. New Yorker Chris Gude has already made several films in South America: Mambo Cool (2013) was about small-time drug dealers in Medellin, and Mariana (2017) depicted whiskey and gasoline smugglers on the Colombia-Venezuela border — both films that, like Morichales, applied a poetic as well as political lens to themes of trade, desperation, and goods fetishisation. Mining in the Venezuelan Guayana is also highly dangerous, and the intensive toil carries unreliable returns for the workers who come by raft hoping to feed their families, their religious faith not always enough to combat their low morale, in a place where there is a hole so deep for reaching elusive deposits it is treacherously susceptible to noxious gases and is called Four Dead Men. An almost mesmeric attention to the rhythms and stages of extraction amid the brown flows of mud and sluiced water, supported by a subtle, atmospheric soundtrack by Maximilian Gude, combines with delicate hand-drawings and maps, Bolex images and visualisation of the workings of quicksilver and other chemical elements that capture the beauty inherent in nature’s alchemy. But any romance humans have attached to gold mining is offset by Gude’s socially and existentially conscious concern for a forest unable to quickly replenish itself, and scant recompense for the labour of miners. The system of sale and reward, or “profits without glory,” reduces metal to an export commodity whereby wealth accumulates far from its origin for those who risk the least, as it passes to buyers and out of the country. The whole territory is connected by water, and rains make the flows rise and fall in ways increasingly unpredictable as the seasons react to the climate crisis. The film takes its title from moriche palms, reminiscent of the Tree of Life of Pemon Indian myth, which it is said once had a complete inventory of fruit prior to it being cut down and water from its stump flooding with world and disseminating its seeds. Legends of such abundance are a stark contrast to the economic deprivation Venezuelans now face, but somehow buoy the continued efforts of adventurers to scour the terrain for lucrative discoveries, their mining a kind of never-settled demand to the land as a provider, which is never offered any profit back in the chain of consumption or nurturing for renewal. The booms and busts of the gold economy have been part of the region there since 1846, but as Morichales beautifully conveys, its frenzied cycle of hope and despair is terribly out of synch with the slow, ancient geological processes of the earth, and the time it takes for the burst of brightness of an exploded supernova to be returned to shining gold melted down into measurable form and clasped in a human hand. (Carmen Gray, VERDICT) Chris Gude emplea un estilo evocador y poético para adentrarnos en la realidad del trabajo de extracción de oro en la selva venezolana, a través de la mirada de un narrador ficticio, quien narra sus observaciones como un informe antropológico. Este explorador viaja por el río Orinoco, atravesando minas en áreas remotas y zonas industriales, mientras se centra en la vida de los mineros y su entorno. El árbol de moriche, planta alimenticia que crece en la ribera, se convierte en símbolo de la compleja relación entre el ser humano y la naturaleza: los mineros conviven con la tierra que los nutre, pero al mismo tiempo la destruyen en su búsqueda por la riqueza. A través de una inmersiva combinación de tomas observacionales en Bolex, ilustraciones y efectos visuales de reacciones fotográficas, Morichales nos ofrece una experiencia visual y sonora única. La meticulosa banda sonora, a cargo de Maximilian Gude, realza el brillo del oro en la pantalla, mientras los planos reflejan la ardua y lenta labor de extracción que contrasta con la acelerada demanda capitalista de este recurso. Gude, quien rodó la película durante trece años, consigue plasmar en su obra una mirada crítica y sensible sobre las implicancias ambientales y humanas de la explotación minera, en un contexto donde el colonialismo y el capitalismo siguen moldeando las vidas de quienes dependen de estos recursos para sobrevivir. Estrenada en la competencia internacional de DOK Leipzig, Morichales se posiciona como una reflexión poética y profundamente humanista sobre la explotación y la fragilidad de la tierra. Los mineros, que arriban en balsas con la esperanza de hallar oro en un suelo cada vez más escaso, enfrentan no solo los peligros físicos de esta labor, sino también el desencanto de una economía injusta donde los beneficios terminan lejos de sus manos. El título de la película, inspirado en las palmas de moriche, evoca mitos indígenas de abundancia, en un contraste trágico con la situación actual de Venezuela. Así, Morichales no solo documenta la labor minera, sino que también invita a una meditación sobre la naturaleza y el tiempo, enfrentando la incesante explotación humana con los lentos procesos de la tierra, siempre generosa pero sin recibir nada a cambio. (Pablo Gross, CALIGARI REVISTA DE CINE) The film takes the audience on a poetic journey into a remote goldmine nestled in the jungles of Venezuela. The pace is slow, the visuals are beautiful and always very present. Never staged and uncomfortable, the film focuses on the men working hard to search for gold in a difficult environment. I feel wrapped in a blanket by the exceptionally beautiful Spanish narration made by Jorge Gaviria. His voice and the fact that he is explaining and describing what we, as an audience, encounter. He acts as a kind of observer and an advanced form of tour guide, helping the viewer question what we see and occasionally providing the answer himself. (Helle Hansen, MODERN TIMES REVIEW) |
DOKLeipzig Mostra Sao Paulo |
