Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be! . . . . . Bunthorne, from Patience by W.S. Gilbert
All right, now, boys and girls, settle down! Let’s get started. Welcome back from the holidays to FLS (Film Studies) 308, the second semester of Cinematic and Literary Devices in Film. You’ll recall that last semester, in order to develop your technical mastery of filmmaking, your term projects consisted of producing films using as many different cinematic and literary devices as you could incorporate while studiously avoiding any hint of truth, insight, or substantive message. We’ll begin this semester by examining in class the winning entry. I’m pleased to announce that, after careful consideration, the faculty has selected Julio Medem’s entry called Tierra. Julio was able to incorporate an unprecedented total of six cinematic devices and seven literary devices in his movie. He worked these in despite the flimsiest of plots and, most importantly, without letting all of these flourishes and embellishments interfere with the requirement that the film say absolutely nothing of importance. Some day each of you may need this ability to ensure that viewers are left with the impression that your film, with its superficial appearance of emptiness, was actually too deep and complicated for their simple minds. By inundating viewers with multiple artsy devices, you can successfully ensure that they will walk away praising your film’s marvelous ambiguity, enigmatic quality, and incomprehensibility.
The Plot: Note, students, the utter simplicity of Julio’s plot. A man named Ángel Bengoelxeo (Carmelo Gomez), employed by Urtzi Fumigation, has been sent to a rural Spanish village to fumigate the fields because of an epidemic of woodlice. (Though the woodlice impart a distinctive earthy quality to the local wine, they are a nuisance to the farmers.) Ángel, who describes himself as “complex”, hears an interior voice which he views as his other half. He describes himself as half living and half dead, so presumably half of Ángel, in his own view, is “angel” in the other sense as well. (The film is partly narrated by Ángel and partly by Ángel’s angel voice.) We also learn that Ángel has been released after a stay in a mental institution for “an overactive imagination.” That probably means “delusions” and taken together with hearing voices, it’s a fair assumption that Ángel suffers from low level schizophrenia with periods of relative remission and periods of exacerbation requiring institutionalization. He does not impress viewers as a threat to either himself or the community. He is usually coherent and has a gentle disposition.
Ángel, traveling in his fumigation truck, is forced to stop in the road because of a lamb that has strayed from its flock. A girl on a motorcycle suggests that he can easily pick up the lamb and carry it off the road because lambs are “idiots.” [Since this film is non-linear in structure, the mini-scene described in that last sentence is actually presented much later in the film out of sequence!] Ángel carries the lamb to a nearby wagon which is the dwelling of a family of gypsies who are tending this flock. The gypsies draw Ángel’s attention to five corpses lying a short distance away – one man and four sheep – all of whom were hit by a bolt of lightning a few minutes earlier. Ángel discovers that the man is still alive, or, as the film presents it, alive again, having already died but then being resuscitated by a shiver of current still reverberating through his body. The man mumbles a bit to Ángel about his “death” or “near-death” images and declares that the bolt of lightening was sent by someone named “Mari.” [Who we later learn was the girl on the motorcycle.]
The gypsies want nothing to do with the crispy lambs, so Ángel loads them into his truck. He proceeds to the small village of his destination and stops at the first farmhouse to gather information about the woodlice problem. There he meets an elderly widower, Tomás (Txema Blasco), and his daughter, Ángela (Emma Suárez), who is about the same age as Ángel. The two take an immediate shine to one another, though Ángela is already married to a farmer (and the “heavy” in this story), Patricio (Karra Elejalde). Ángel soon meets Ángela’s daughter, also Ángela (Ane Sánchez), returning from school as Ángel is surveying the garden for woodlice. Ángel leaves the family a gift of one of the lambs fried by the lightning.
Ángel soon meets Patricio in a most awkward way. Ángel hears a shot from among the corn stalks and goes to investigate. He is nearly shot for his trouble when he abruptly encounters Patricio, armed with a shotgun. Patricio, who doesn’t mince words, tells him that had he accidentally shot him, he would have buried him on the spot and nobody would have ever known. Thus begins a rather tense relationship. Patricio is married to Ángela but also has a mistress – Mari (Silke Hornillos Klein). Patricio is even more emphatic about Ángel staying away from his mistress than his wife! Ángel, however, manages to fall in love with both the man’s wife and his mistress – which doesn’t bode well, especially considering Patricio’s violent propensities. Ángel can’t help himself, however, and Ángela is receptive to both his kindness and his phone calls, inviting him to dinner one evening.
The middle segment of the film mostly follows the developing fumigation effort. Ángel impresses the village’s mayor with the thoroughness of the job specs and cost estimate. Then, gypsies are hired and trained in the use of the suits and fumigation equipment. Ángel also hangs out, a bit, in the local bar, which is where Mari struts about playing billiards. The leather-clad Mari is a real sex-kitten with shimmering body movements. She exudes sex and apparently accommodates as many men as she can without them killing one another or herself. Her current lovers include both Patricio and one of the gypsies. Mari clearly wants to add Ángel to her entourage.
During a wild boar hunt, Ángel shoots Patricio “half-accidentally”, as he later explains. It was his angel half. This naturally further sours their relationship. Patricio later comes across Ángel at Mari’s house, fumigating her apple orchard, leading to a standoff, with Ángel brandishing his fumigating nozzle and Patricio his gun. In the next scene, however, Patricio is hit by lightening while tooling around in his favorite farm machine, frying him to extra-crispy. That kills off the main antagonist in the film and it’s still only a bit more than half over!
The remainder of the story relates to Ángel’s tantalizing choice as to which, if either, of the dead Patricio’s two beautiful women to claim. Both seem more than willing. On the one hand, there’s Mari, the sex kitten and, on the other hand, Ángela the widow who exudes purity, nurturance, and blushing modesty. Each however is determined to broaden her horizons, making the choice all the tougher. Mari, who has always been after pure sex, wants to learn real love while the sweet Ángela, with a libido suppressed by years of unhappy marriage, wants to add hot sex to her repertoire. Naturally, a guy in this dilemma is not going to jump to a conclusion before trying both on for size. Further complicating matters is that Ángel is a split personality to begin with and his angel side is leaning heavily toward Ángela, naturally, but his corporeal side rather prefers the sex kitten.
The fumigation job is completed and Ángel, feeling himself unraveling a bit under the strain of trying to unify his personality, decides that the expedient course of action will be to leave town with neither Mari or Ángela. He stops off to pay the gypsies and gets conked on the head by a rock thrown by one of the gypsy lads. Awakening in the hospital, he is greeted by his uncle (and boss at the fumigation company). He is told that there is a beautiful woman waiting for him. After a few suspenseful moments waiting to see which one it is, we and he find out that it is . . . . . wouldn’t you like to know? See the movie to find out.
Literary Devices Employed: Now, boys and girls, lets take a look at all the goodies that Julio was able to cram into this film.
Allusion/homage – On one level, this film can be thought of as homage to the greatest of Spanish film directors, Luis Buñuel. On the general level, there’s the use of surrealism, which was pioneered by Buñuel in L’Age D’Or (1930) and reprised in lesser degree in many of his later films (e.g., Belle de Jour). On the more specific level, there are distinct parallels in subject matter between Tierra and Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), where the male protagonist has to deal with a young woman lover who vacillates between aggressive sensuousness and demure frigidity. Buñuel used the unprecedented technique of actually having the female lover played by two different actresses to highlight the extremity of the discontinuity of her moods. Here, in Tierra, we find a variation on that theme where the male lover has two personalities and must choose between two distinct women – one aggressively sensuous and the other demure but loving.
Metaphors – Medem has packed his film with one metaphor after another. Mental illness is implicitly likened to spirituality. Ángel has his angel side that seems to enable him to communicate with the dead, whether in reality or in his delusions. The brief resuscitation of the first man hit by lightning is not so remarkable, but, later, Ángel has an extended conversation with the dead Patricio and also enables the depressed Tomás to “find” his deceased wife. Medem also introduces the concept of déjà vu, implying that it might be another manifestation of Ángel madness (it’s an erroneous implication however; déjà vu is linked to certain seizure conditions but not with schizophrenia). Medem then reinforces the déjà vu issue by his plot circularities.
The physical environment of the village where Ángel is fumigating is portrayed in a way that gives it a distinctly strange and alien appearance. The all-pervasive red soil of this vineyard region of Spain is highly reminiscent to the otherworldliness of Mars in particular and the parallel is emphasized through some aerial shots that look like the surface of Mars. The metaphor is further reinforced by the similarity between the fumigation suits and the spacesuits worn by astronauts. All of this, in turn, draws parallels between Ángel’s aloneness in human society, as a schizophrenic, and mankind’s isolation in the universe. If there’s one most central theme in this film (here Julio slips up a bit and very nearly says something significant), it’s the issue of disconnectedness, including Ángel’s one personality from the other, Ángela’s estrangement from her husband, corporeal man from the spiritual universe, Earth from other worlds, the mentally ill from “normals” in human society, and man from nature (evidenced by the fumigation and the slaughtering of wildlife). There are parallels drawn as well between various examples of killing by humans, from the fumigating of the woodlice, to the killing of rabbits or boars that raid the gardens, to the possibility of murder being committed by Patricio.
There’s a whole series of metaphors drawn by Medem between various categories of dualities, starting with Ángel’s split personality, the life/death dichotomy and the obscuring of the boundary between the two in Ángel, and the dichotomy between sexual lust (represented by Mari) versus nurturing, maternal love (represented by Ángela). Medem links the contrast between the infinite vastness of space vs. the groundedness of earth to the distinction between souls (which Ángel views as dissipated to the edges of the universe) and physical bodies (which are buried in the cemetery, thereby feeding the woodlice that nest there, which then later transfer an “earthy” flavor, acquired from feeding on human remains, to the wine!) With all these dualities to wend one’s way through, is it any wonder that Ángel’s paths and personalities are sometimes conflicted?
Another metaphor that Medem plays with is the notion of elevated electrical activity – in the forms of lightning, a charged atmosphere, overactive imagination, mental illness, and heightened libido.
Contrasts – Medem also introduces contrasts to highlight certain issues. One example is the contrasting personality struggles of Ángel versus his two lovers. Ángel seeks to resolve his two personalities into one or, at the least, to better cope with his dual personality. Ángela and Mari, conversely, are each at a stage where they are seeking to broaden their personalities to achieve better balance. Mari wants to learn how to truly love rather than being driven entirely by lust. Ángela wants to explore her sexuality in widowhood after a long loveless marriage.
Repetitions/mirroring – There’s reuse of names, including Ángel and the two Ángelas. Ángel’s father also had the same name as little Ángela’s teacher. The gypsy boy throws a rock with deft accuracy at two key points in the film and the lightning strikes twice. Two of the characters speak the line “I feel crispy” at different points in the film.
Symbolism – There are several instances of religious symbolism.
Double-entendres – “Ángel” serves as both the lead character’s name and one of his two personalities.
Coincidences -- The man who worked as a guard at the mental institution where Ángel was institutionalized is now the guard for the mayor of the small town where Ángel has come to fumigate. That man once knocked Ángel unconscious with a head butt. Ángel later gets knocked unconscious by a rock hitting the very same spot on his head.
Cinematic Devices Employed:
Surrealism – Ángel’s two personalities sometimes split off from one another into two separate corporeal representations (that only we and Ángel see). The dead sometimes appear to Ángel (and to us) and engage him in conversation.
Unusual color palette – The emphasis in this film is on high tint reds, oranges and browns that confer the otherworldly appearance.
Non-linear narrative structure – Medem’s elliptical and palindromic story line often seems as malleable as putty. The narrative jumps haphazardly and without markers between present and flashbacks. Medem’s own surname is the same spelled backward as forward so he probably feels that his stories may as well run in both directions as well.
Narration -- Tierra employs a complex system of narration. We are getting the story from the protagonists perspective, but he has a split personality, so the internal narrator is sometimes the “angel” half and sometimes the “corporeal” half.
Film style reinforcing narrative – The narrative instability (scenes out of sequence and quick shifts between realism and surrealism) reflects Ángel’s psychological instability. Viewers are left with the feeling that anything can happen.
Richness of characters – Several of the characters have distinctive personalities and are well enough developed to warrant our interest. He’s also gotten some good quality performances out of his cast.
Bottom-Line: So, class, you’ll note the rich variety of devices that Julio was able to successfully incorporate. Now, having watched the film, has it deepened your understanding of mental illness? Not at all. Do you have a deeper understanding of death or the nature of existence? Of course not. Do you have a better appreciation for Buñuel’s work or for human disconnectedness? Not in the least. The beauty of Julio’s conception, here, is that he’s repeatedly propped up pairs of vaguely similar ideas beside one another without actually demonstrating any relationship. Here’s a dualism and here’s another, for example. Here’s mental illness and here’s spirits from the dead. Viewers can’t help but imagine that he must be suggesting some profound relationships between these various ideas – if only they had the depth of insight to spot them. It’s an illusion that they’ll fall for every time.
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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Spain:
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