I Dream in Another Language

A special film. Each other word seems does not work. Two old men, a village, a young man , a language. And two love stories. A silence across decades. And the past as answer and question. It is difficult to define it because you see only an aspect. The entire portrait, the delicacy of links between facts, the bitter and harsh details are easy to ignore. Because it is a film about roots. Deep roots, from language to fairy tales and myths to secrets defining a strange, forbidden love story. A film about a dying universe. About reconciliation. Admirable for plot, landscapes and beautiful performances, a seed film , growing each day after I saw it almost like memory. A film about roots.

Beautiful Pain. It so sad to think that all those years they been seperated and just until the end they find out what they need. The body language, eyes contact, all these look and act... It's so touching. I don't think it gonna end like that, i thought it'd be sad, but then it happened really meaning and make me smile happily.

The Mexican film Sueño en otro idioma was shown in the U.S. with the translated title I Dream in Another Language (2017). It was directed by Ernesto Contreras.

This is a fascinating movie, based on a plausible situation. An indigenous language--Zikril--

is vanishing. When the movie begins, there are only three people who can still speak Zikril. Soon, there are just two. A young linguist, Martín (played by Fernando Álvarez Rebeil), wants to preserve the language. The problem is that the two men who can speak Zikril hate each other. José Manuel Ponce plays Isauro, and Eligio Meléndez portrays Evaristo. By amazing good fortune--for Martín--the most beautiful woman in Mexico, Lluvia (Fátima Molina) is the granddaughter of one of the men.

The plot of the film revolves around Martín's attempts to bring the two men together so they can have a conversation in Zikril. That will allow Martín to record them and save the language for future generations. Of course, bringing them together means unraveling the reason that they are apart. Naturally, the reason isn't anything simple. It's a complex set of events that have remained buried until Martín arrives.

We saw this fascinating film at Rochester's great Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman Museum. It was shown as part of ImageOut, the wonderful Rochester LGBT Film Festival. Unfortunately, this movie is best seen in a theater. The vegetation in the rain forest in which the film is set is astounding. However, even if you lose that aspect of the film, the basic story line will compensate for this. I recommend that you find this movie and watch it.

Saw this film at the very last minute without knowing a thing about it beyond the one or two line description that the cashier gave me at the theater showing it. I was standing there and it was about to start, and I asked what's it about--and her response was enough to make me hand money over to see it at literally a moment's notice, so you know you got an interesting idea if your brief synopsis is interesting enough to hook someone like that. (Basically two people who hate each other are the last two people on Earth to speak this one language and this linguist who's interested in preserving the language has to somehow convince these two men to start speaking to one another again which of course isn't easy)

The film follows this guy who is very interested in trying to preserve this rapidly dying language in the very photogenic San Isidro area of Mexico. There are at the film's beginning only three people in the world who speak this particular dialect, and so the guy who is a linguist tries his best to record what he can of it, and possibly try and learn a handful of words himself to try and keep the language alive as it was, and these two other people who make up the last people on Earth who speak this language are former best friends who have not spoken to one another in over 50 years, and bear a huge grudge against one another for reasons that will eventually be made clear during the course of the movie. Meanwhile our leading man ends up starting a relationship with the granddaughter/caretaker of one of these two men, and the two of them plot together to try and unite these two former friends so as to try and preserve what they can of the dying out language. Its a cute enough premise, and as a backdrop to a love story for the linguist and the granddaughter its not a half bad love story as well.

The imagery of this movie is very good, and the way the material is presented at first made me think we might be getting some sort of off beat comedy along the lines of Aki Kurismaki or Jim Jarmusch, but the film's tone quickly veers more towards the melodramatic than humorous as the film's main story-line gets going. Its an OK film on the whole, and I think if people can embrace the metaphysical aspects of the film's big climactic sequence, they might end up enjoying the film's last half hour a bit more than I did. I wasn't prepared for the film to veer into the metaphysical the way it did, although I appreciated it, it reminded me a little bit of the TV series "Northern Exposure" in that sense, in fact the whole premise itself was very "Northern Expsoure" like which may in fact be what made me decide to see it just on a sheer moment's notice. (about that shift into metaphysical--without giving anything away i'll just say that the film's depiction of what happens to the dying as they um lay dying was interesting to contemplate afterwards, it'd be nice to think that that's what happens! I thought it was neat, but it doesn't quite track with the literal way the story was presenting itself in that first hour or so...but still i give the film credit for at least changing itself up in a unique way.)

I do look forward to seeing what the writer/director of this does in the future tho, there are some sequences here that are very beautifully shot, and i think the scenery is just very, very well captured. Its worth checking out if you get the chance to see it, but well like I said, after a great first half or so, i think the film veers into melodrama terrain, and i think the film kind of writes itself into a corner at one point, like after the big reveal is revealed, I wasn't entirely sure where the film was left to go to, but its still more than interesting enough to hold your attention or fancy (as in flight of) on the whole.

Nearly every aspect of this work-of-art is perfectly complemented. Lost language and love, dying and the persistence of opportunity slipping away-so poetic and enchanting. Many movies strain for the type of majesty "Sueño en otro idioma" accomplishes seemingly effortlessly, but only one or two a year ever surface into mainstream society.

Bravo to Ernesto Contreras, cast and crew.