El Planeta

Playful and meditative in equal turns, El Planeta is a unique feature film debut - a re-invention of auteur cinema for the Internet age, and the arrival of a Amalia Ulman as a visionary director. It is a timely story about an unconventional millennial family, aspirational consumer culture, capitalism and failure. It feels relevant, fresh and non-conformist in both its content and execution, yet never confrontational.

Amalia's impact in shaping contemporary art and culture is already undeniable. In 2014, Amalia Ulman crossed over from a small community of young "post-Internet" artists to international fame with her project, "Excellences and Perfections." Google the project or Amalia's name and you'll find plenty of documentation. I've followed her artwork since then, and when I saw Amalia was going to make a feature film, of course I was interested in knowing more and got a ticket to see it at Sundance 2021.

I'm not sure exactly what I expected when I started the film, but needless to say I was very impressed. The film is deliberate, slow, punctuated by memorable scenes. You find yourself drawn more and more into the lives of the characters María and Leonor, a mother and daughter facing eviction in Gijón, Asturias. Their everyday lives are rendered timelessly, yet with an eye to contemporary detail - seeing an Odwalla1221 sweater in a movie I almost did a double take, as it was like seeing something from my social media timeline materialize into a cinematic universe.

I don't want to give too much of the film away as it has not been widely released yet, but what I loved most about the film - what inspired me the most - is that the film is made with a profound amount of respect for storytelling and the audience, rather than forcing her way of seeing the world onto us. In this way, El Planeta rewards the viewer with a generosity of spirit. It's a testimony to Amalia's incredible ability to inhabit and work from within different media forms that she was able to take independent cinema on its terms and craft a well-paced, stylish drama as her feature debut. I look forward to seeing what she'll make next!

I can appreciate quirky cinema but this attempt did not work for me. I see the influences of Jarmusch's Down by Law and Herzog's Stroszek but those are much better films. A mother and daughter team of shoplifters who grift their way through life appear in disconnected scenes with supposed humor is a depressing black and white journey. The high scores are a case of the emperor has no clothes; much like the "music" of Yoko Ono, just pretentious nonsense. Miss Ulman made a real life home movie.

This film is beautiful and stylish, witty clever and funny but I don't think a dark comedy, as one reviewer called it here is an apt title, I think it meant to be a satire but because it's so funny and elegant most of its barbs end up feeling like tickles. So we chuckle or laugh when we should've moved uncomfortably in our chairs hiding our faces with shame.

The other fault it has is a failure to build real human characters. Both of the leads come out as made up creatures, especially so the mother that doesn't create even the slightest empathy to her plight. The daughter, who's being played by the film's writer-director Amalia Ulman does get a fair share of character building moments but every time we start developing any empathy for her the film takes a step back and alienates us from her again. So we may laugh and chuckle but I think that's not the emotions the film aimed for. In fact I don't think that's the emotions the film should've aimed for.

This is a very good film. I haven't looked up the background of the filmmaker but i really do hope she makes more movies. There is a lot of depth and sweetness here, edged gently by the grittiness of tough living and struggles in our world today. But mainly there are many delicate touches of an idiosyncratic, personal vision that reaches your heart and goes about playfully but also doesn't lie about hard things.

Clever, stylish and subtle, El Planeta made me wish more indie movies got made today! We need such vantages into the world