The Desert Within

Colour, 35 mm
Mexico, 2008, 112 min
Section: Open Eyes

Synopsis

Elías has committed a sin against God and he fears he will be punished. He is convinced that God’s wrath will manifest itself in the premature death of his eight children. In order to change his family’s destiny and earn God’s forgiveness, he chooses to live in seclusion and dedicates his life to the construction of a church… The story is told through the eyes of Elías’s youngest and most vulnerable son Aureliano, who portrays the family saga in religious paintings. Yet it is Elías’s mistakes which change the course of events, not God’s vengeance. At least some of his children begin to realise that their father blames God for his inability to forgive others and, above all, himself... The director was initially prompted to make the film after discovering the diaries of the philosopher Sören Kierkegaard, who describes his fear of being condemned to a premature death by his father. Events unfolding during the 20th century helped the filmmaker to transfer the story from a Protestant environment to a Catholic and Mexican setting, and, in a historical context, to portray a film image of irrational religious insanity. The film closed International Critics’ Week at Cannes this year.

About the director

Rodrigo Plá (b. 1968, Montevideo) was born in Uruguay, but has found a niche alongside major Mexican filmmakers. He studied at the Escuela Activa de Fotografía y Vídeo and, in 1987, completed a course in film screenwriting and direction at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC). A year later he made his first short film, Moira. He is credited as assistant director on the remarkable film Benjamin’s Woman (1991). He launched his international career with the film My Girlfriend (1995), which won Best Short Film at the festivals in Biarritz and Mexico. He won a Student Oscar and an Ariel award in Mexico for Eyes in the Back of One’s Head (2001). He made two feature films based on his own screenplay, written with his wife, the author and screenwriter Laura Santullo: the thriller The Zone (2007), which won Best Debut at the 64th Venice Biennale, and his next film The Desert Within (2008).