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LIFE in the highlands of Bolivia, more than 3500 metres above sea level, has always been at the mercy of the elements.
Virginio and Sisa have lived on the Andean plateau of western Bolivia all their lives, in a modest mud house without electricity or running water, tending to livestock and growing crops in one of the most exposed environments on Earth.
It is a precarious existence, but with many decades of experience and generations of knowledge handed down through the Indigenous Quechua people, the Quechua couple have found ways of working with the brutal land.
Virginio tends to the llamas (pictured below), Sisa fetches water from the village, and though they may go long stretches without rain, it always falls eventually. Or so Virginio insists, his gaze fixed on the arid land: 鈥淭he rain is coming.鈥�
What he refuses, or fears to, acknowledge is that the world is changing, and him along with it; and those old ways of being are no longer working. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not like that anymore,鈥� a friend tells him. 鈥淭ime has gotten tired, Virginio.鈥�
The threat, inevitability and consequences of climate change permeate Utama, the debut feature film from Bolivian writer-director Alejandro Loayza Grisi. It tells the story of Virginio and Sisa, a long-married couple whose existence is at risk from an exceptionally long drought.
When their grandson arrives, firmly suggesting that the time has come for them to move in with him in the city, they are forced to confront how much they are prepared to give up.
Winner of a Grand Jury Prize at this year鈥檚 Sundance Festival, and Bolivia鈥檚 submission for Best International Feature Film for the coming Oscars, Utama is an unsettling, memorable film, bringing into focus the individual and cultural costs of our changing planet.
It is also visually stunning, with Loayza Grisi鈥檚 background in still photography evident in dramatic wide shots of the arid horizon stretched between the mountains and aquamarine sky. With B谩rbara Alvarez as cinematographer, Utama makes striking use of colour, texture and scale, easily warranting a trip to the cinema.
Visual parallels made between the cracked earth and aged skin emphasise the shared history of the two, while bird鈥檚-eye views showing Virginio and Sisa鈥檚 home 鈥� even their entire village 鈥� as a dot against the ground make stark just how isolated they are.
But Utama鈥榮 lasting resonance is in its human story, and the struggle of its central characters. Virginio and Sisa鈥檚 reluctance to uproot their lives and relocate to the city is understandable, but so is their grandson鈥檚 concern about their increasingly tough existence.
Ultimately, however, the decision isn鈥檛 theirs to make: there is no water, the crops aren鈥檛 growing and Virginio鈥檚 health is deteriorating. Most villagers have fled already. 鈥淣obody wants to stay,鈥� one woman tells Sisa.
Adding to the film鈥檚 poignancy is the fact that Virginio and Sisa are portrayed by Jos茅 Calcina and Luisa Quispe, a real-life couple and non-professional actors whom Loayza Grisi persuaded to appear.
Utama is a fictional story 鈥� small, still and quietly told 鈥� but it stands in for a much bigger one currently unfolding. The Andean plateau is to be especially vulnerable to climate variability, and is already experiencing increased temperatures and rainfall, as well as more frequent extreme weather events and patterns. In the high mountain regions, glaciers are in retreat, affecting the availability of water.
Born and raised in La Paz, Loayza Grisi has witnessed the costs of climate change in the arrival of migrants from the nearby countryside and the accelerating disappearance of Quechua culture. He has said Utama is a 鈥渃autionary tale鈥�, showing the toll of our current ways of life on rural Indigenous communities in particular.
For all the humanity and intimacy in the portrayal of Virginio and Sisa鈥檚 lives, there is a creeping sense of foreboding to Utama 鈥� in Virginio鈥檚 laboured breathing, the circling condors, the rain that doesn鈥檛 come.
鈥淲e need to make a bigger sacrifice,鈥� says one of the villagers after their ritual to 鈥渟ow the water鈥� doesn鈥檛 bring the prayed-for results. Utama makes clear that their sacrifice may be inevitable.
Elle Hunt is a writer based in聽Norfolk,聽UK
