Ariel

Ariel is a play within play captured on film. Argentine actress Augustina is stranded on a strange enchanted island whose inhabitants have transformed into Shakespearean characters. The sparkling waterscapes and enchanting land territories become the scene of the uncertain battle between reality and fantasy, mundane art and otherworldly imagination.

Lois Patiño immerses us in a strange reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, set in the magical Azores archipelago of volcanic origin, where the usual flows of time and space are suspended. The opening shot of the shimmering purple ocean creates a mystical atmosphere in which apparitions take on tangible contours and the established rhythm of life awaits a poetic twist. After a bizarre catamaran journey, in which all passengers are carried away by the spell of sleep, our histrionic protagonist Augustina begins to question the purpose of her arrival, as well as her everyday desires and existential preoccupations. Patiño challenges the principles of magical realism through curious transformations and the contrasting perspectives of the newcomer Augustina and the islander Ariel, which deconstruct the space between the spoken word and the embodied performance. The seemingly paradisiacal island transformed into a theater is revealed as a frustrating trap and an overplayed language game in which every attempt at meaningful communication is thwarted, and where the causes of social conflict are blurred.

Filmed on a 16-mm tape, like the director’s previous film meditation Samsara, this meta-film equally captures both the body and the spirit, enthralling the senses and embarking the audience on a hallucinogenic journey through Shakespearean corners of the human soul and the unchanging human nature, down to its tragicomic abysses and up to its unexpected climaxes.