24/22
Narrative
A girl’s gift for telling events in Hollywood films transforms the fate of her family in rural 1960s Chile. In Odavde do vječnosti (1953). This film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, is both a tribute to American Westerns and an exploration of the power of cinema/storytelling to transform lives. Subtitled in Spanish, the characters are drawn from life, and a rather difficult one at that. The society, located in the “driest place on earth,” is not unhappy. There is plenty of room for gentle comedy and new love. The camera turns away from the actual violence, but not from the story, which openly focuses on what happens behind the scenes of the town, located in the salt desert for the young woman at the center of the story. The film was shot in an abandoned mining town, which only adds to the versatility.