Angel (Carmelo Gomez) is a fumigator who visits a wine growing area in order to kill the woodlice that infest the soil and give the wine a distinctively wooden flavor. Tierra, Julio Medem's first film after The Red Squirrel, is a tour de force about a man seeking a balance between his inner world and outer reality. Tierra begins with a trip through space from the outer galaxies descending to Earth in an agricultural area. Beautifully photographed by Javier Aguirresarobe, the bare landscape with its orange and brown colors, gives the land a look of strangeness. Angel has a running dialogue with his other self (his angel). He had been treated in a mental hospital for multiple personality disorder but it is not clear whether he is a spirit guide, an alien visitor, or a paranoid schizophrenic.
Angel claims that he has been sent down to Earth for a divine mission, and that he is half-man and half-angel, half-alive and half-dead. Angel hires local gypsies to help him fumigate the land, a project eagerly approved by the town, and they walk through the land covered in white protective suits that look like they were borrowed from the wardrobe of the movie ET. The half of Angel that is alive is torn between the sweet wholesome blond Angela (Emma Suarez) and the over-sexed eighteen-year old redhead Mari (Silke Hornillos Klein). Both are attached to a mean-spirited local farmer named Patricio (Karra Elejalde), one as his neglected wife, the other as his mistress.
Angel claims that he is in love with Angela but is slowly seduced by the playfully aggressive Mari. The selection of a lover takes on profound philosophical underpinnings as it becomes a struggle for his soul, reflecting his own split personality, real or imagined. Along the way he has to deal with death by lightning, suicide, wild boar hunts, and a jealous husband. Replete with awkward ruminations about duality, death, and the nature of life, however, the film unfortunately loses its narrative focus and becomes tedious and muddled. Without the metaphysics, Tierra could have been an intriguing look at the nature of human desire and the way we make choices about relationships. While the film contains fine performances and an intriguing sense of magic realism, I found Tierra to be an ultimately unsatisfying experience.
Angel claims that he has been sent down to Earth for a divine mission, and that he is half-man and half-angel, half-alive and half-dead. Angel hires local gypsies to help him fumigate the land, a project eagerly approved by the town, and they walk through the land covered in white protective suits that look like they were borrowed from the wardrobe of the movie ET. The half of Angel that is alive is torn between the sweet wholesome blond Angela (Emma Suarez) and the over-sexed eighteen-year old redhead Mari (Silke Hornillos Klein). Both are attached to a mean-spirited local farmer named Patricio (Karra Elejalde), one as his neglected wife, the other as his mistress.
Angel claims that he is in love with Angela but is slowly seduced by the playfully aggressive Mari. The selection of a lover takes on profound philosophical underpinnings as it becomes a struggle for his soul, reflecting his own split personality, real or imagined. Along the way he has to deal with death by lightning, suicide, wild boar hunts, and a jealous husband. Replete with awkward ruminations about duality, death, and the nature of life, however, the film unfortunately loses its narrative focus and becomes tedious and muddled. Without the metaphysics, Tierra could have been an intriguing look at the nature of human desire and the way we make choices about relationships. While the film contains fine performances and an intriguing sense of magic realism, I found Tierra to be an ultimately unsatisfying experience.