Just saw this film and was pretty blown away by it. Fantastic pacing, cinematography, and soundtrack. Very convincing performances by the entire cast and a well told story. The film doesn't have dialogue where it isn't needed or wouldn't make sense. Highly recommend any true cinephile sees this film. Not for people who want to see mainstream hollywood fare.
share***SPOILERS AHEAD***
I agree that it is an excellent film, but... I hated the ending. It's ambiguous, but it seems as if Osvaldo, the shaman in training, commits suicide, and the quick cut to a bird flying in the sky seems to suggest his spirit flying from his body--unsheathed from reality, to borrow Robinson's Jeffers' phrase. When Osvaldo says, "I win, you lose," the film is presenting suicide as a victory, even though the events of the movie show the opposite: the Indians have once again been defeated.
I liked the scene right before this, when Osvaldo appeared on the family's lawn and starting threatening them and shouting war woops, but the final scene, the hanging, reverses all that. Are we supposed to take it literally, and presume that Osvaldo at the last minute decides NOT to commit suicide?
I usually don't mind ambiguous endings, but this one really bothered me.
I just saw the film and just before he says that line, Osvaldo slips the noose off his head. So I thought he had decided not to do away with himself.
This is not a sig. It's just so you don't think the last line of my post was a sig.
the ending is perfect it is really illustrating the current state of the problem : the genocide goes on as they fight in dwindling numbers. throughout the film Osvaldo learns to sense and repel an evil entity referred to as Angue. Evil is a symbol for a lot of things, including the suicidal trend the guarani are plagued with. His friend Irineu fell victim to it when he was exposed to the consumerist debauchery and then sized the tight and mostly hopeless perspective of family and relationship building. Osvaldo had a less unfortunate experience and found a desperate resolution to fight for his identity, thus adressing Angue at the end of the movie.
this is not an ambiguous ending, and this is not fiction to feel bothered with.