The Returned

On the final day of the online Abertoir Horror Festival,I started planning for the final film to view. Originally thinking of going for the Canadian Come True (2020), the gems I had discovered during the Viva:Cinema of Latin America festival at HOME in Manchester,led to me instead making a return.

Note:Some spoilers in review.

View on the film:

Building a fence between Julia with her landowning family, and the indigenous people of the land, the screenplay by co-writer/(with Lisandro Colaberardino and Paulo Soria) director Laura Casabe roots Folk Horror with a compassionate exploration over the horrors inflicted on the native community, who are treated by Julia as a fear of "the other", shoving them further away from the fenced land, with Julia being frozen with fear when she steps out of her safe zone.

Having suffered from miscarriages, the writers delicately explore the fear of loss and anxiety of motherhood which Julia holds, graced with a sharp intake of fear over her son Manuel suddenly disappearing,leading to Julia dropping her guard and entering the land of the natives.

Sinking into nightmares, director Casabe & cinematographer Leonardo Hermo shake the foundations of the house and Julia's mind with a excellent, splintered soundtrack of tribal hums and supernatural shrieks. Walking into the heart of the jungle, Casabe crunches a poetic slow-burn atmosphere of long wide-shots gliding deeper with Julia into the land of the indigenous, as Manuel returns.