Zuzana Kirchnerová’s road-trip film “Caravan” opens with a collection of idyllic vacation scenes. A vast shot of a tranquil swimming pool. A seashore ball, shut up, with iridescent sequins inside. Lambent rays of sunshine bouncing lazily off the floor of the pool. A breathy voiceover whispers, “It’s going to be nice, David. You’ll see.” The whisperer is revealed as a mom, reassuring her youngster as they lie subsequent to one another in mattress beneath a white sheet. If Terrence Malick directed a business for an Italian vacation house, it could go one thing like this sequence. However, the idyll is a short-lived mirage.
Filmed primarily in Italy’s Reggio Calabria, in addition to Bologna and the Czech Republic, that is the story of 45-year-old single mother Ester (Ana Geislerova) and 15-year-old David (David Vodstrcil), whose vacation with snug middle-class buddies is disrupted when the pair are requested by the household they’re speculated to be staying with to maneuver right into a caravan. This surprising request is precipitated by the chums’ lack of ability to manage with David’s habits: He is intellectually disabled, and this generally leads to explosively bodily outbursts. Exhausted and piqued after overhearing a patronizing dialog about David, Ester leaves within the caravan, taking her son on an impromptu drive, throughout which they’re joined by livewire free spirit Zuza (Juliana Brutovska).
“Caravan” marks the return of Czech filmmaking to the official choice at Cannes after a niche of 30-odd years, and to date, Kirchnerová can also be the one Czech filmmaker ever to win the Premier Prix on the Cinéfondation in Cannes — again in 2009. So what took her so lengthy to capitalize on that win? The focus of her physique of labor up to now on the obligations of feminine caregivers seemingly supplies the reply. Building on short-film work a few teenage lady’s wrestle to offer take care of a bedridden grandparent (Baba), and a docu-drama following 4 girls by way of being pregnant (“Four Pregnancies”), “Caravan” is a movie firmly rooted within the expertise of what it’s to offer fulltime care for one more human being whereas additionally attempting to exist as your self. In Ester’s case, the self is what bears the brunt of her labor, her existence as something past caregiver step by step eroded, with no finish in sight.
Partly because of the road-trip format, “Caravan” isn’t tightly plotted, with vignettes unfolding in pretty interchangeable order as Ester, David and Zuza try to make their means on the planet. The topic of intercourse rears its head in a variety of methods, generally in relation to David’s standing as a curious teenager, however extra typically round his mom, as Ester tries to navigate what romance would possibly appear to be for somebody in her state of affairs.
Dating as a single mother or father is already fraught with the dilemma of how, when and if to reveal the existence of your youngster, a call as a lot in regards to the youngster’s welfare as anything, however which additionally tends to confer the standing of a secret that have to be managed on single parenthood. Ester is dealing with very explicit circumstances on prime of this, managing her son’s expertise of the world in a means that’s completely different from the bulk expertise of parenting a young person.
One standout scene in Ester’s personal love life handles an ambiguity round sexual consent in a means that feels altogether distinctive: Ester is propositioned by an previous farmer who has employed her and Zuza as informal laborers. At first not sure, Ester permits the man to the touch her, and as a viewer the scene is ambiguous. To Zuza, when she stumbles throughout them, that is clearly a unclean previous man coercing her pal, and he or she reacts with forthright anger, whisking Ester away and off the farm. Shortly thereafter, Ester breaks down in tears, doubling down on the anomaly of the viewer expertise, earlier than she clarifies: She was really having fun with herself. Zuza is all apologies and laughter.
David, in the meantime, is “getting that peach fuzz on the chin”, as Zuza places it, and figuring out precisely how one can deal with his burgeoning curiosity in different our bodies is a query the movie leaves pretty open. Rooted in Kirchnerová’s personal life elevating a baby with Down syndrome and autism, the movie has a elementary tenderness operating all through, whereas harder scenes earn their place on the desk with their sense of authenticity and private testimony.
Like a small youngster, David expresses his anger bodily and with out restraint, although he has the power of a strong younger man. He expresses his anger with none filter, however this isn’t his fault — which doesn’t change the truth that his punches and scratches trigger critical injury. Watching Ester try to navigate this with love however little exterior help is undeniably robust.
Nothing right here goes wherever narratively surprising, however that’s okay. With some movies, the pleasure is all in getting there, and with others, the identical is true of intentional discomfort. This is a movie bent on taking you on a generally sentimental however incessantly painful journey, and it does so in a typically clear-eyed means, born of expertise.
