Following on from her 2009 Golden Bear success for Milk of Sorrow, Claudia Llosa returns to
the Berlinale with Aloft; a dense earthy
film about a renowned natural healer and the son she left behind.
The film plays out on two different timeframes focusing on
the son, Ivan, first as a boy (Zen McGrath), then a grown man (Cillian Murphy).
As a young man his family move to northern Canada in the hope of healing Ivan’s
brother via the hands of an enigmatic natural healer known only as The
Architect. Back in the present, Ivan is now a reclusive falcon trainer. A
documentary maker (Melanie Laurent) arrives on the scene wishing to make a film
about Ivan’s mother and despite his immediate reservations, Ivan decides to go
along for the ride.
It’s an incredibly organic piece of work; a story of lost
souls seeking warmth in a freezing cold emotional wasteland. The woodlands and
ice flats seem to be characters in themselves- and along with Ivan‘s falcons-
represent the elemental forces at work here. It’s cold and moody no doubt but very
natural and ethereal too and much like the films of Jane Campion, it flows with
a wonderful sense of nurturing femininity.
