Olivia is a haunting meditative Argentinian film, which lands in UK cinemas.
Sofia Petersen’s film premiered at Locarno last year and garnered much acclaim during that festival appearance.
Olivia tells the story of the eponymous female character, who lives on a farm with her ageing father near a slaughterhouse. She dreams by day and works at night. Olivia has the mind of a child, her arrested development makes her unsure of the larger world. Her world is restricted to her small home and this relative peace is upended when her father disappears one night.
Olivia, unsure and meek, ventures out into the expansive world in search of him. This is where the film meditative to begin with pivots into a folk fairytale; Olivia encounters characters along her journey and yet returns to the slaughterhouse.
There is subtle imagery marking the growth of Olivia away from her childlike mindset to that of adolescent; the image of her standing in the slaughterhouse in her white boots with droplets of red blood appearing on her protected feet. The notion of her becoming a woman is duly noted.
This leads to a moment in a bar when she dances to a favourite song in a room full of patrons, this exhibits her new found confidence. The use of a mainstream song shows her awakening in step with the world and is something reminiscent of the Lynchian touch in Blue Velvet.
Technically excellent, the film was shot over 45 consecutive days (on 16mm Kodak Ektachrome) with a crew of five and two actresses in the Tierra del Fuego province, including workers from the Municipal Slaugherhouse of Rio Grande. The film was filmed entirely without electricity and is anchored by a breakout role by Tina Sconochini as Olivia.
The striking cinematography is by Owain Wilshaw and a humming original score by Utsav Lal is evocative and transfixing.
Beholden to the legacy of Tarkovsky’s slow cinema, this is a precise and methodical film that is not attempting to manipulate the audience but merely guide them on this journey of self-discovery in unison with the protagonist. The exploration of absence and isolation goes hand in hand with the delicate interplay between life and death.
Olivia is released from Animitas, from 24th April.
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