20/02/2023 - BERLINALE 2023: Lois Patiño presents his most narrative and dynamic yet radical film, a sensorial experiment that invites the audience to experience it with their eyes closed

Accompany a soul through two different bodies. This is what Lois Patiño offers in Samsara [+see also:
trailer
interview: Lois Patiño
film profile], his third feature film after Cost of Death [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lois Patiño
film profile] and Red Moon Tide [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lois Patiño
film profile]. With it, he takes part in the Encounters section of the 73rd Berlinale, which is open to all kinds of experimentation. This is a film shot between Laos and Zanzibar, divided into two parts (each by a different camera operator, Mauro Herce in the first country and Jessica Sarah Rinland in Tanzania) and with a risky central transit stage, 15 minutes long, during which the audience is invited to close their eyes and let themself be carried away by the sounds and flashes in the darkness, with their eyelids down.

Because Samsara aims to be an emotional and sensory journey. The film is rich in spirituality, from the Laos landscapes where monks visit places of bewitching nature and a young man reads the Tibetan Book of the Dead to an old woman about to pass into another body, to the dreams that some characters experience, or to that aforementioned transition dotted with voices, flashes of light and colours until they reach a different, but equally fascinating, landscape.

Filmed in 16 mm, Samsara manages to cast a spell on the viewer who is willing to be seduced by other cultures, states of mind and beliefs. Its rhythmic pace, the serene attitude of its characters and even the more artistic and experimental moments (overlays, colour shifts and other editing and post-production work) leads to a state of relaxation, peace and contemplation.

The narrative, linear and dynamic, that Patiño handles here is also quite different from that used in his previous works (both shorts and feature films). Although the omnipotent presence of the landscape, like an enormous canvas where humans are just another brushstroke, leaves that easily identifiable mark.

With the threat of tourism and modernity out of the picture (but present in some conversations), the filmmaker invites the audience to take this geographical and spiritual journey, to confront the different perceptions offered by the film, both in the framework of reality and in the oneiric. It is this terrain, somewhere between the visible and the invisible, art and cinematography, the real and what is beyond death, is where Patiño has once again experimented, without fear of risk, with his new film.

Samsara is produced by Señor y Señora with the support of Jeonju Cinema Project, among other institutions. Bendita Film Sales is in charge of its export.

(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)