There is an intriguing opening to this very disjointed tale of mystic healing that never ceases to leave you feel anything other than baffled right up to the final credits even though that was clearly never really the intention of Peruvian writer/director Claudia Llosa. At the beginning we follow Nana begging for a lift in the back of a truck for herself and her two young sons. Gully is obviously quite sick and his older brother Ivan is just bored but nevertheless totally absorbed in his pet falcon that he is never apart from.
They are going to try and meet a famous shaman in this desolate prairie, but so too is this large crowd desperate to see the mysterious faith healer known as 'The Architect' in the hope that they can be cured from illnesses beyond the scope of conventional medicine. However he will only agree to see one of them and there is a rather cruel lottery system to determine who the lucky one will be.
Gully draws the right pebble and he is just in the middle of his session when the falcon goes amok causing total mayhem but all is not lost in the chaos as they realise when the boy actually gets better its because its Nana who actually possesses the gift for healing after all. (We never ever discover if The Architect was a fraud or not.)
She is reluctant to accept her new powers but as it is obvious that Gully is getting better she does start her own healing sessions out in middle of the woods. On one such occasion she leaves the two boys in a car whilst she heads off for some privacy to see some sick people. Alone they start the car up and drive off and end up overturning it into a frozen lake and Gully drowns.
Fast forward 20 years and Ivan is married and has a child of his own but is very much an unhappy loner and now with a whole flock of falcons. He is approached by a journalist who asks to interview him for an article she is writing about falcons, but she eventually confesses that this is just a ruse and the real reason she wants to meet him is to track his mother down. Nana became an infamous healer/miracle worker before totally disappearing out of sight with her band of loyal followers.
The journalist actually has a personal reason for the search as she has a terminal disease and has run out of all other options. She is eventually successfully in persuading Ivan to help in her quest as he wants to know how his mother could have just completely abandon him after his brother died. He seems incapable of any emotional attachment but he would at least like some closure on it all.
They eventually track her down to the extreme snowy wastes of the Arctic where Nana spends her life in the middle of nowhere healing the strangers who have made the near impossible trek. It is far from clear though whether she has embraced her healing gifts even she is dispensing them freely on a full time basis. She and Ivan have a great deal of anger towards each other and to life in general, so he fails to get any of the answers that he wanted. Neither does the journalist, nor do we.
It's a disappointing third feature from Ms Llosa especially as is follows her stunning award-winning 'The Milk of Sorrows' and stars Cillian Murphy, Jennifer Connolly and Melanie Laurent. Murphy at least seems to love playing miserable, but not enough to save this somewhat annoying drama that seems as cold as the snowy wastes that it is set in.
★★★★
★★★★
