The Wind Journeys

Last updated

The Wind Journeys
Los Viajes del Viento Official Poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Ciro Guerra
Written byCiro Guerra
Produced byDiana Bustamante
Cristina Gallego
StarringMarciano Martínez
Yull Núñez
CinematographyPaulo Andrés Pérez
Edited byIván Wild
Music byIván Ocampo
Production
companies
Ciudad Lunar Producciones
World Cinema Fund
ZDF
arte
Razor Films
Cine Ojo
Voya Films
Distributed byCineplex
Release date
  • 1 April 2009 (2009-04-01)
Running time
117 minutes
CountriesColombia
Germany
Netherlands
Argentina
LanguagesSpanish
Palenquero
Wayuu
Arhuaco

The Wind Journeys (Spanish : Los viajes del viento) is a 2009 Colombian-German-Argentine-Dutch drama film written and directed by Ciro Guerra. It was filmed in 80 locations in Northern Colombia and is spoken in Spanish, Palenquero, Wayuunaiki, and Ikun. It was selected as the Colombian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards, but was not nominated.

Contents

Plot

The film follows the travels of vallenato musician Ignacio Carrillo (portrayed by real-life musician Marciano Martínez) who is followed by Fermín, a young boy who wants to be his apprentice, in a journey to return his instrument to his original owner, the man who once was his mentor.

Ignacio Carrillo is a vallenato musician from Majagual (Sucre), who decides, after his wife's sudden death, to stop playing and return his accordion to his former master. It is said that the instrument is cursed after Guerra, the former master, won a duel with the devil. He is joined by Fermín Morales (Yull Núñez), a teenage boy who admires Ignacio and wishes to become a juglar like him. Carrillo reluctantly accepts, given his loneliness. In 1968, on an Ash Wednesday, Carrillo, Morales and their donkey start a journey through several towns in the Caribbean region in Northern Colombia, to Taroa (a small caserío in La Guajira Desert) where Carrillo's master supposedly lives. During their journey, Carrillo participates in the first version of the Vallenato Legend Festival in Valledupar.

Cast

Production

Guerra had the idea to make the film after an introduction meeting for students when he began to study films in the National University of Colombia. "A boy stood up and said: My name is John Doe, I'm x years old and I hate the vallenato. And people applauded him.". He decided then to demonstrate that the vallenato is more than "commercial music that is heard in the buses of the cities and that generates prevention in people".[ citation needed ]

Guerra sees vallenato as an important cultural component pointing out "If there is the American imaginary of the western and the Chinese imaginary of the fantastic genre of martial arts, here is one very rich in vallenato".[ citation needed ]

The protagonists of the film had no experience as actors before the production, so they received a year of preparation for the making of the film. According to Guerra, it was easy to find people willing to participate in the production, with the exception of the Arawak of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, who were a more reserved community so it took a year's effort to persuade them.[ citation needed ]

It was filmed in 80 locations in Northern Colombia [1] and is spoken in Spanish, Palenquero, Wayuunaiki, and Ikun.[ citation needed ]

Release

The film was released on 30 April 2009 as part of the Vallenato Legend Festival.[ citation needed ]

Reception

Critical response

The film received positive reviews from critics. Justin Chang of Variety gave a positive review of the film. He summarized his review saying: "The rugged majesty of the Colombian landscape forms a spectacular widescreen backdrop for a simple, bittersweet tale of regret and companionship in "The Wind Journeys." [2] David Sterritt of TCM wrote: "Extremely high praise is due to the widescreen color cinematography by Paulo Andrés Pérez, which captures a sweeping array of locations... in images brimming with atmosphere." He also praised the music by Iván Ocampo, saying that his "... original score is also crucial to the movie's effectiveness". [3] As noted by Ana Cecilia Calle in her review for Austin Film Society , the film makes references to the legendary figure of Francisco the Man, of whom it is said beat the devil in a contest and is mentioned in Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude . She also wrote: "The film sharply points out ways music connected people and territories in rural northern Colombia in the late 1960s... The film's quest of returning the accordion is an homage to such communities..." Like others, she praised the cinematography saying: "Guerra's careful cinematography offers both a tempting dish and also a challenge for the audience: panoramic shots, long silences, short dialogues, crisp, wide ambient sound. These elements allow us to lose ourselves in a sensorial experience that can also question our traditional cinematic ideas about time." [4]

Awards

The Wind Journeys was chosen to participate in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. [5] There it won the Award of the City of Rome. [6]

The film also won the awards of Best Colombian Film and Best Director at 2009 Bogotá Film Festival and Best Colombian Film and Best Director at 2010 Cartagena Film Festival. The film won the Best Spanish Language Film award at 2010 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

Jacobo Morales is a Puerto Rican actor, poet, writer, playwright, filmmaker, and author born in Puerto Rico. Many consider him the most influential film director in Puerto Rico's history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlos Vives</span> Colombian singer (born 1961)

Carlos Alberto Vives Restrepo is a Colombian singer, songwriter and actor. He is known for his interpretation of traditional music styles of Colombia such as vallenato, cumbia, champeta, bambuco and porro as well as genres such as Latin pop, reggaeton, dance pop and tropical music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music of Colombia</span>

The music of Colombia is an expression of Colombian culture, music genres, both traditional and modern, according with the features of each geographic region, although it is not uncommon to find different musical styles in the same region. The diversity in musical expressions found in Colombia can be seen as the result of a mixture of Amerindian, African, and European influences, as well as more modern American.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vallenato</span> Colombian folk music genre

Vallenato is a popular folk music genre from Colombia. It primarily comes from its Caribbean region. Vallenato literally means "born in the valley". The valley influencing this name is located between the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Serranía de Perijá in north-east Colombia. The name also applies to the people from the city where this genre originated: Valledupar. In 2006, vallenato and cumbia were added as a category in the Latin Grammy Awards. Colombia's traditional vallenato music is Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, according to UNESCO.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Héctor Alterio</span> Argentine actor (born 1929)

Héctor Benjamín Alterio Onorato is an Argentine theatre, film and television actor, well known both in Argentina and Spain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fernando Luján</span> Mexican actor (1938–2019)

Fernando Luján was a Mexican actor. He was a star of the silver screen in classic mexican films during the Golden Age of Mexican cinema.

<i>The Empty Mirror</i> 1996 American film

The Empty Mirror is an experimental dramatic feature-length film using historical images and speculative fiction to study the life and mind of Adolf Hitler. The film is a psychological journey that examines the nature of evil and the dark strands of human nature. The 1996 film was premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival and was released theatrically by Lions Gate Films. The film had its cable premiere on HBO.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaleth Morales</span> Musical artist

Kaleth Miguel Morales Troya was a Colombian vallenato singer and songwriter, best known as the leader of the "Nueva Ola" movement in Vallenato, having released singles such as Vivo en el Limbo.

<i>Carrusel</i> Mexican childrens telenovela

Carrusel is a Mexican children's telenovela produced by Valentín Pimstein for Televisa in 1989. It is based on the Argentinean character Jacinta Pichimahuida, and produced by and broadcast on Televisa in 1989. It covers daily life in a Mexican elementary school and the children's relationships with a charismatic teacher named Ximena. Among other plot devices, it deals with the differences between the upper and lower classes of Mexican society – specifically as seen in a romantic relationship between Cirilo, a poor black boy, and a spoiled white rich girl, Maria Joaquina Villaseñor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silvestre Dangond</span> Colombian singer (born 1980)

Silvestre Francisco Dangond Corrales is a Colombian singer. He attributes his talents to his father, the singer William José "El Palomo" Dangond Baquero, who during the mid-1970s recorded 10 singles with Andrés "El Turco" Gil; and his mother, who comes from a musical family and passed down her charismatic nature to him, while also playing a major role in his formal and personal education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guadalajara International Film Festival</span>

The Guadalajara International Film Festival is a week-long film festival held each March in the Mexican city of Guadalajara since 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fernando Birri</span> Argentine film maker and theorist (1925–2017)

Fernando Birri was an Argentine film maker and theorist. He was considered by many to be the father of the new Latin American cinema.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joaquín Cosío</span> Mexican actor and poet (born 1962)

Joaquín Cosío Osuna is a Mexican actor and poet. He has been nominated four times for the Mexican Academy of Film Ariel Awards, winning the Ariel Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work as Gabriel in The Thin Yellow Line in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ciro Guerra</span> Colombian film director

Ciro Guerra is a Colombian film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his 2015 film Embrace of the Serpent, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards, and for The Wind Journeys, selected as the Colombian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jimmy Zambrano</span> Musical artist

Jimmy Zambrano, is a Colombian accordion player.

The Santiago International Film Festival is a film festival that launched in 2005. As its name suggests, the festival takes place in Santiago, Chile.

<i>Embrace of the Serpent</i> 2015 film

Embrace of the Serpent is a 2015 internationally co-produced adventure drama film directed by Ciro Guerra, and written by Guerra and Jacques Toulemonde Vidal. Shot almost entirely in black and white, the film follows two journeys made thirty years apart by the indigenous shaman Karamakate in the Colombian Amazonian jungle, one with Theo, a German ethnographer, and the other with Evan, an American botanist, both of whom are searching for the rare plant yakruna. It was inspired by the travel diaries of Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes, and dedicated to lost Amazonian cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mahmoud Kalari</span>

Mahmoud Kalari is an Iranian cinematographer, screenwriter, film director, and photographer who has worked with number of renowned Iranian directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Asghar Farhadi, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cumbia (Colombia)</span> Regional music and dance style

Cumbia is a folkloric genre and dance from Colombia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maite Ruiz de Austri</span>

Maite Ruiz de Austri is a Spanish writer, screenwriter, and film and television director, specializing in programs for children and young adults.

References

  1. María Alejandra Pautassi (21 March 2009). "Hay que salir de Colombia". Semana . Retrieved 2 May 2009.
  2. Justin Chang. "Review: 'The Wind Journeys'". Variety.
  3. David Sterritt. "The Wind Journeys (2009)". TCM.
  4. Ana Cecilia Calle. "Program Notes: THE WIND JOURNEYS". Austin Film Society.[ permanent dead link ]
  5. Derek Elley and John Hopewell (23 April 2009). "Cannes unveils lineup". Variety . Retrieved 2 May 2009.
  6. "Los Viajes del Viento (The Wind Journeys)". Canadian Film Institute. Archived from the original on 3 August 2017. Retrieved 14 February 2016.