BFI London Film Festival: El Mar La Mar

BFI Film Festival: 243 features. 67 countries. 15 cinemas. 12 days. One Festival.

A haunting and extraordinarily resonant anthropological essay about border crossings by Harvard Sensory Lab alumni J.P. Sniadecki and Joshua Bonnetta.

Representing the sensory experience of landscape, fauna and climate, the directors explore the harrowing journeys of undocumented migrants crossing the inhospitable and arid Sonoran Desert – a strategic point of passage located between Mexico and the United States.

The film interlaces grainy 16mm shots of sparse plant life, animals and the traces people leave behind them with a carefully crafted soundtrack of natural sounds and the testimonies of migrants, border guards and locals.

It perfectly encapsulates the stunning beauty, stark brutality and atmosphere of the region with the experience of people who have to cross it. The result is a topical, visually striking and immersive cinematic exploration of survival, the cycle of life and death, and the mercilessness of nature.

(Notes by Laure Bonville)

El Mar La Mar, dir. Joshua Bonnetta and J.P. Sniadecki, USA 2017, 95 mins

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