Building on the revisionary historical work of their first feature, “They Carry Death,” writer/directors Helena Girón and Samuel Delgado return to the Canary Islands with another searing portrait of colonialism in “The Fortunate Isles.” Trading out Christopher Columbus and the fifteenth century for the story of an aging Marquis (Lou Castel) and his enslaved, pregnant, North African caretaker Fátima (Luisa Ahl Laabiad) in the sixteenth century, it’s a film that deceptively packs a lot into its scant 80-minute runtime. Named after the mythological paradise that was sold to travelers during that time, the film contends with not only the enslaved who were forced to the islands, but those who willingly packed up and left Castile only to find themselves, as the introductory text explains, “trapped, cut off from the outside world.”
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Taking place almost exclusively on a desolate archipelago run by the Marquis from his bedridden state, the film quickly centralizes Fátima’s struggles. In the first scene, we see her collecting supplies for him, noting his outsized interest in wine despite the fact that clean drinking water is in short supply. As the courier rows away, Fátima must contend with the idea that more supplies may not be coming anytime soon, especially since the Marquis’s son is trying to starve his father and take back the archipelago, using water scarcity as a tactic to control the citizens. Pregnant and enslaved, Fátima is nevertheless given privileges that the other inhabitants don’t have, which makes her a mark as unrest continues to grow.
Yet this isn’t a film about revolution, per se. Instead, Girón and Delgado paint a much more nuanced and compelling portrait of a society turning against itself. With drinking water running out, and the Marquis continually slipping in and out of coherency, Fátima’s relationships with the townsfolk come into focus. She’s viewed as simultaneously, and paradoxically, privileged and abused. The others are sympathetic to her plight but only up until a point, as their thirst begins to take over. Sold false hopes of riches, the inhabitants’ relationship to the land that the Crown of Castile took over has curdled; so has their ability to live off of it. This relationship between land and living, especially considering the decimation of the indigenous population during the colonization, is so central to the film, even if it’s almost entirely backgrounded in the narrative. Water, then, becomes not only a weapon for the Marquis’s son, but also a stand-in for the life that has already been sucked out of the people, living to live without any hope of escape.
At the center of this tension is Fátima. Played by first-time actor Ahl Laabiad, it’s a revelatory performance that conveys almost everything through silence, including lingering glances with another resident. The same goes for Castel, who infuses the Marquis with the type of overstated pomp that quickly evaporates into hallucinogenic paranoia. Everything here feels tactile and earthy, down to José Alayón’s grainy cinematography. This is all the more accentuated by the time that Fátima realizes she has to go to the Marquis’s son to plead for the inhabitants. What happens on that journey, of course, is best left unspoiled, other than to say that this film has one of the most fascinating endings I’ve seen all year.
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It’s, of course, not rare to see independent films contend with the specters of history and colonialism with such specificity. But it is rare to see them do so as a period piece, let alone one that recreates the sixteenth century. Yet, Girón and Delgado have carved out a fascinating niche for themselves, willing to recontextualize what we think about when we label a film a “historical epic.” Despite its limited scope and short runtime, this film is interested not only in recreating a historical moment, but also in how we still contend with the decisions of those from 400 years ago. It’s also one of this year’s best. [A]
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