BIFF 2020: Los Conductos
BIFF 2020The influences of Herzog and Jodorowsky in Camilo Restrepo's Los Conductos are clear from the start. An existential and ambiguous – albeit enthralling – spectacle of a tale that follows Luis Felipe Lozano's Pinky has he descends into madness while on the run.
First and foremost, Restrepo's film utilises a 1970s aesthetic lens and 1.66:1 aspect ratio in a manner that not only intoxicates regarding this enigmatic narrative but, in the same breath, layers to the overall dystopian feel. It looks stunning in the usage of film stock with an astonishing grain on offer. An element that looks plush with fabulous colours of red and green bursting out the screen. It's an intoxicating decision from director Restrepo as well as cinematographer Guillaume Mazloum to create an oxymoronic relationship between environment and theme. Undoubtedly a subtextual decision to state the films political undertone of crisis in Columbia, but one that is subtle and delicate with a staunch nuance that slowly but surely feeds through the image at hand.
Descriptives such as enigmatic and ambiguous do not quite do justice on the sensibility and mood that Restrepo's film conveys. This is a highly obscure and cold feature constructed in an acid trip of sorts with an unreliable and often elusive narrator. It is a film that elicits a conductive mood from the outset throughout. Gunshots in the wind, desperation engulfs all and unknown terror seems to follow Lozano's Pinky at every sudden turn – both literally and internally.
If anything, Los Conductos is a film that says nothing but in the next breath says as much as needs to. To that extent, the filmmaking here, depending on the viewers' engagement, is an intense highlight of making a multifaceted picture. That being said, it does take one or two missteps in utterly unresponsive tonal ambiguity, in which undoubtedly the film could covey in far more on the nose and thus harrowing manner.
The issue of ambiguity surrounding the flow and impact ultimately limits the material on hand for the actors and characters to thrive. Luis Felipe Lozano, namely, is having to double down in a concrete performance that one that undoubtedly evokes a form of inaccessible material due to its lack of verbalisation. Lozano does a stellar job to produce an emotive performance, specifically through his quite striking and gaunt physicality. He perfectly crafts a performance with a layered uncertainty that reinforces the film's overall mood.
Nevertheless, while Los Conductos may perhaps go too heavy-handed with its tentative nature, it is a fabulously crafted feature with a strong prowess where its filmmaking ability is concerned from director Camilo Restrepo as well as utterly gorgeous cinematography from Guillaume Mazloum.
