DIRECTED by Claudia Llosa, ‘Fever Dream‘ is a beautiful, rather woozy and intense film about about two mothers and their contrasting relationships with their children.
New to Netflix, Llosa’s film is a poetic, punch-drunk psychological drama that seems as though it were ripped from every parent’s worst nightmares, and then nursed to infinite hysteria by David Lynch or Darren Aronofsky. We are cast under a very strong spell from the off in this deeply perplexing and sensual film.
‘Fever Dream‘, is just that, we are filled throughout with the sense of waking from broken sleep — disorientated, flushed, ill at ease, ruffled, and reaching for something to steer us back towards home and all we hold dear.
Set in rural Argentina, the story revolves around an encounter between two very different women and mothers.
The well-to-do and conservative Amanda (María Valverde), has come from Spain for the summer with her easy-going young daughter Nina (Guillermina Sorribes Liotta), while her husband Marco (Guillermo Pfening), preoccupied with his work, fails to make another family holiday. Amanda is constantly uptight, worrying about her daughter and considering the “rescue distance” of every perceived calamity.
Soon after arriving, Amanda strikes up a relationship with free-spirited local beauty Carola (Dolores Fonzi), a woman who feels trapped in her small town surroundings and unhappy marriage, and longs for something more. Carola also believes that her son David (Emilio Vodanovich) is no longer her son. She claims that during a childhood illness his soul migrated from his body and left someone, or something else, behind in its place.
The film kind of feels like ‘Mulholland Drive‘ had it been set in the deep, dark outreaches of South America.
While beautiful to look at, it is bit of a puzzle, so it won’t be to everyone’s liking. Overall though, ‘Fever Dream’ is a spellbinding film that is as much a study of maternal love, as it is about man’s destruction of Mother Earth.
(3/5)
Goblins Be Thine 