A Masterful Fable Of Memory And Time

Debutant director Julia Marat in one of the most nostalgic and yet riveting Latin-American debuts ever, tells the fable of a place which time has forgotten. The dozen villagers in ‘Stories That Only Exist When Remembered’ go about their daily routine with a clockwork precision that is both a reverence to their past as it is a wait for their inevitable future.

Time, however, cannot forever neglect its dominion, no matter how remote. And so it happens that time does come visiting the village in the form of a young female photographer who neither understands the place or its people, yet is curious enough to want to know.

“If I was old, I wouldn’t do this film. It will be clichéd then. I did this because for me today this is different and unique,” director Juila Murat told IANS about her film. “As a young person I need speed and the latent energy of a place like Rio or even Mumbai,” she candidly admits.

Hence, her debut feature with its masterful command, not mere control of time and space, stuns you. With touches of eternity, this is indeed a sculpture, a portrait of time.

Julia paints a mythical landscape of a place where a few old people live, neither too nostalgic of the past nor needing any hope. They may seem in a sort of limbo but perhaps these handful old, forgotten villagers and their village, are the only ones who truly live. For isn’t living, about the present moment rather than the burdens of their past or anxiety of the future?

With unsentimental and poetic touches she paints life as it should be, unhurried, relaxed and sentient. Considering that in our structurally violent world today, this is extremely rare, ‘Stories…’ thus becomes a rare fable.

For some the film might be slow. But for those with a fertile imagination it has speed all about it. Every single wrinkle on the faces of the characters, ever single crack on the wall, ever little rust on the iron in the village, tells a million tales of times gone by, stories and histories of its people, both dead and alive and of the village. You have to be sensitive to hear these stories.

Unlike other filmmakers with a rich antecedent, Julia’s candour stands out. She admits the role of her filmmaker mother in shaping her cinematically. “How many 12 year olds watch indie films with a gusto. I did,” she says reminiscing the time watching the best of the films from her country and the world. Her cinematic mastery also comes from assisting her mother Lucia Murat in almost every cinematic department: scriptwriting, direction, camera, editing etc.

Yet, while Lucia’s films are political in nature, steaming from her experience as a journalist and activist against the dictatorship in Brazil between 1968-79 when she was arrested and tortured in prison, Julia’s films are about life.

It is perhaps the poetry of life, that Julia, born the year that dictatorship ended in Brazil, is carrying on her mother’s legacy and represents life just as her mother represented political strife around. With her debut feature, Julia Murat become a voice to watch out for.

This feature has been written for the new wire service, IANS (Indo-Asian News Service).