Luz: The Flower of Evil

Dir Juan Diego Escobar Alzate, Mexico/Colombia, 2019

On digital 26 July; Blu-ray 23 August

A heady brew of acid Western, folklore, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Terrence Malick, Luz is unlike anything else you’ll see this year.

In an unspecified time and place, Señor (Conrado Osorio) is the leader of a small, devoutly religious mountain community where he rules the roost in much the same way a cult leader dominates his disciples. He lives with his daughter Uma (Yuri Vargas), two young women he has taken in – Laila (Andrea Esquivel) and Zion (Sharon Guzman) – and sundry other losers and drifters. He is mourning the recent death of his wife, the titular Luz, and perhaps in reaction to that has promised his community that soon the Messiah will come, reborn as a child, to absolve them of their sins. Naturally, the struggle between repression, be it patriarchal, religious, or sexual, and a desire for individuality leads to conflicts of the most cruel and bloody kind.

The first thing to say is that despite the way in which the film has been marketed, it isn’t a horror film, at least not in the sense that Hammer or Amicus would understand the term. Yes, it has horrific moments, is frequently repellent and dispiriting, and has an atmosphere of constant dread, but then so does Schindler’s List.

I don’t think it serves a film well, especially one as singular as this, to try to pigeonhole it. Genre theory is fine, but sometimes a film doesn’t fit into any category.

If not horror then, what is it? The aforementioned Jodorowsky and Malick are obvious reference points. The combination of those two directors’ styles could lead to pretentiousness and wilful obscurantism, and at times it does, but the themes are clear. Malick’s reverence for the natural world and despair at man’s intrusion into it is there in the achingly beautiful location photography, shot in such a way as to heighten the sense of wonder. Jodorowsky’s preoccupations – sex, religion and death – are present, as is

Despite the way it has been marketed, it isn’t a horror film

his commitment to shocking the viewer. Director Alzate has been up-front about his admiration for Jodorowsky and has said that Luz is full of references to his work.

All of which is fine and dandy, but does it work? To a degree, yes. The contrast between light and dark, interiors and exteriors, the colourful and the drab, is all done supremely well. Alzate has complete command of technique, and Luz feels organic – the seams between the various elements never show. He has some big things to say about big topics and skewers hypocritical religious attitudes brilliantly. Señor never takes responsibility for his own actions, instead ascribing them to the work of the Devil. Like all fanatics, he believes he has the answers to everything, but actually knows nothing; his words are empty rhetoric.

However, the film is slow, individual scenes take too long to resolve, and at times it is a chore to sit through. Most of the script is the demented ramblings of a maniac, which doesn’t make for great cinema. There are a lot of meaningless voiceovers in the Malick-approved style, which strive for profundity but fail. Nobody talks or acts like a real human being, which I suppose is reasonable enough if you take the film to be an anti-religious parable, but it has a distancing effect; you’re aware the film is a stylised fiction, so it’s difficult to really care for the characters. It’s a bit like how I imagine attending one of those American evangelical services you see on TV must be like: spending 104 minutes in the company of naïve and credulous morons, while being ranted at by a religious fanatic. Nevertheless, I can cautiously recommend

Luz, largely because of the photography and its sheer oddity; just don’t expect a horror film.

★★★ ★★