One thread runs through all of the multi-generational subjects in Rosana Matecki’s excellent documentary, Casas Muertas – they are all haunted in some form by ghosts, whether that is family who are lost, or a country that resembles nothing of what it once was; these people are haunted and lost. Matecki’s empathetic lens and storytelling skills bring their stories to life.

In recent years, more than seven million Venezuelans have fled the turmoil of their country. Exiled in their own homeland for various reasons, Isabel, Darwin, Jesús, Elvira and Gregori grapple with daily challenges, from the pressing concern of earning enough money for food to the struggle of finding joy in an atmosphere of nationwide despair. They carry with them a metaphorical casa muerta—a house of the dead. Each has endured immeasurable loss.

Striking poverty is shown to us in Casas Muertas. For people who were not fully aware of how dire the situation in the country had gotten, Rosana Matecki shows us in all of its grim glory. All of our subjects are stuck in terrible living situations. Isabel, an older woman who still resides in her flooded hometown, has to ask a shopkeeper for her daughter to come to pay for two kilos of grain.

We have Jesús, a trained accountant who cannot afford to live in his own property and so lives as a caretaker in the empty home of a neighbour who fled. They live their lives on the constant edge. With Matecki’s generally static and distant camera, we feel every bit of it. By pulling her camera back just enough, we see the full scope, visually and emotionally, of the solitude that they have. We see Isabel, a woman who should be relaxing in her elder years, working in the field, clearing reeds in the flooded remnants of her former town.

Matecki also knows how to find a striking shot, and with that flooded defiant church at Potosí, a symbol of the resilience and faith of the people, she allows for a melancholy to seep in at almost every opportunity. Often picking long shots to show how distant they are from a life they should be living, in a Venezuela that should be better, breaks you. These are people who have been broken, but glued back together and are just surviving, and Casas Muertas gives us as clear a visual showing of that as possible.

For various reasons, our subjects are firmly stuck in no man’s land. Desperately want to leave their country to try and make something of their lives, but can’t because, for some, they simply do not have the money to do so. So they stay and get stuck in a perpetual unfilled wish that the country they love will somehow, someway become a better place.

They are resilient, strong people who have so much hope in their hearts that their lives and their country can become something more. However, they know it’s unlikely, but they will not let that take over them, for if they do, what do they have left? So they stay and live and hope for a miracle; their story is similar to millions of other Venezuelans, and with how sensitively Matecki structures her film. You are left desperately wishing for the best of these courageous people, hoping for that miracle for them.

★★★ 1/2

Support Us

I am but a small website in this big wide world. As much as I would love to make this website a big and wonderful entity. That would bring in more costs. So, for now, all I hope is to make Upcoming On Screen self-sufficient. Well, enough to make any website fees less of a worry for me in the future. You can support the website below…

Patreon

You can support us in a variety of ways (other than that wonderful word of mouth) and those lovely follows. If you are so inclined to help us out then you can support us via Patreon, find our link here! We don’t want to ask you much, so for now, we have limited our tiers to £1.50 and £3.50. These will, of course, grow the more we plan to do here at Upcoming On Screen.

Thanks for reading; every view helps us out more than you would think (we have fragile egos). Until next time.

Social Media

You can also support us via Twitter and Facebook Instagram and Blue Sky! by giving us a follow and a like. Every single one helps!