The Desert Bride (La Novia del Desierto)
Directed by Cecuikua Atán & Valeria Pivato
Chile | 2017 | Fiction | 78 min | Spanish w/English subtitles
Film Source: Strand Releasing
A tender and subtly funny road movie about a middle-aged woman and man. The main actress, Paulina Garcia (who won a Silver Bear in 2013 for Sebastián Lelio’s 2013 film Gloria), is outstanding. The Desert Bride could be labeled a sophisticated shaggy dog story — a portrait of a developing relationship. Its gentle pace amounts to something real and resonant, and it cultivates a mood of dawdling realism. It works like recent Richard Linklater movies: a “slow cinema” that doesn’t drag the impatient spectator along, but floats deliberately across its terrain with confidence and plenty of heart. If you let yourself go with the flow, you won’t be disappointed. ~ OY