Under California: The Limit of Time

The extraordinary directorial debut of noted Mexican film editor Carlos Bolado (whose cutting credits include Like Water for Chocolate) won an impressive seven Ariel Awards (the Mexican Oscars), including Best Picture, Best First Feature, and Best Actor honours for lead Damián Alcázar. Alcázar plays Damian, an artist who goes on the run after a hit-and-run accident that may have killed a pregnant woman. Leaving behind his wife (also pregnant) in the U.S., he sets out on a guilt-ridden, soul-searching, often-arduous pilgrimage across Mexico’s Baja peninsula, where he has family roots, and where the region’s stunning landscapes — and mysterious ancient cave paintings — provide the source for spiritual renewal. “Haunting, pictorially ravishing . . . A heartfelt odyssey into self . . . At once complex in its visual conceptualization and political without hitting the viewer over the head, Under California owes a passing debt to the symbolic pilgrimages of Buñuel and Antonioni — but only a passing debt . . . Alcázar gives an unusually moving and, in long stretches, purely visual performance” (Glenn Lovell, Variety). Colour, 35mm, in Spanish with English subtitles. 98 mins.