Road-movie, coming-of-age tale
check and check, but do not be mislead by these general film genre titles and the formulaic tropes that they often carry. Ciro Guerra's award-winning feature debut is much more. (By the way he was 27 years old when he filmed it). In a small village in Colombia, Ignacio (Marciano Martinez), a troubadour, has just lost his wife. In grief and in somewhat of an existential panic Ignacio sets out on a journey to return his unique accordion, known as "The Devil's Accordion," to his master Guerra who bestowed it upon him. The legend of the accordion and the mystical aura surrounding the existence of Master Guerra gives the film a powerful mystical undertone. Ignacio, on mule, soon discovers he is not alone on his journey, but finds a zestful teenager Fermin (Nunez) in tow. The dynamics of their relationship is to be expected: optimism vs. pessimism, willing student vs. reluctant mentor, a young man's passion for life vs. an older man exhausted by life, yet these simple tropes never comes off as tired and overly predictable. The Wind Journeys has a poignant intellectual life, confidently mixing humor and sadness, the air of the ethereal with the coarse naturalness of everyday life.
The true artistic and intellectual revelations of the film come from its aural and visual explosions. As can be seen and heard in the final sequence, the wind carries the music and the music the wind, as both roar audibly intertwined over beautiful shots of various landscapes of Colombia. The music is what drives the characters from stop to stop along the journey. "I don't play the accordion, it plays me," as Ignacio tells his young companion. Guerra has created pure filmic poetry through the characters discovering, rediscovering and embracing various cultural sights and sounds: like the intense, beautiful scene with one tribe's drumming initiation ceremony, where if you pass the test on the drums the players' hands are covered in the blood of a lizard.
The cinematography is gorgeous and as the film progresses the crane shots overlooking the majestic pastoral landscapes and the quiet roaming shots of something as simple as the wind blowing the vibrant, tall green grass on a hillside functions in almost a Terrence Mallick sense. The camera-work only helps to heighten the spiritual and mystic undertones, which Guerra strikes a perfect balance with; not allowing the story or the visual scope to bend too far into the land of magic-realism. Everything Mr. Guerra does is balanced: emotional with mundane, mystic with the natural. The natural but existential quandaries of the characters and how they relate to one another and how they relate to the ebbs and flows of the overflowing cultural magnificence of the world in which they are passing through makes for truly refined and sublime filmmaking.
