La Sirga by William Vega

La Sirga, first feature by William Vega, is a film that seems to come from the back of the beyond. As a matter of fact, the main character Alice, a young woman in her early twenties, crosses afoot majestic, desert and windy landscapes made of mist, hills and luxuriant vegetation during the elongated exposition scene, imposing a thumping, and in my opinion enthralling, rhythm to the audience. Only a stain of colour in the fog - as she wears a red jumper, Alice eventually arrives to a wooden house named La Sirga set on the shores of an immense lake. There, she is reluctantly welcomed by her uncle Oscar, who grumpily mutters that she can stay for a couple of days. With her very long black hair and American Indian features, Alice is a farther relative to the character of Fausta in Golden Bear winner La Teta Asustada. Both women - if one Peruvian and the other Columbian - flee from armed conflicts that rage in their countries and suffer in the aftermaths of war. The exact nature of the violence will never be clearly explained in La Sirga; only we learn that “La Siberia” – Alice’s family house, or maybe village? – was burnt. Later on we will catch a brief glimpse of shotguns hidden in the bottom of a rowboat and Oscar’s son will complain at the vague desires of collectivization in the neighbourhood, but that will be it. The strength of Vega’s feature resides in its exploration of the characters’ intimacies, and its precise description of different processes of resilience. A little big film, La Sirga’s beauty lies in the exposition of small details, the very same ones from which Alice is capable to draw strength and hope in order to build a new life.

by Matthieu Darras