This sombre, thoughtful sci-fi drama wears its genre trappings lightly, more tightly focussed on two brothers and how their relationship explores its themes of masculinity, family, and jealousy than dazzling with spectacle. It could easily be a melodrama about how a serious illness affects not just those who suffer it, but those around them, but the sci-fi element allows for higher stakes and a sting of classic body horror.
In 2041 two brothers Tristan (Louis Peres) and Lazaro (Pablo Cobo) are in training to land a place on a European space mission. The implication is that Earth is in dire straits and this programme would be part of a colonising venture. Tristan is top of the class and seems a shoo-in for his place. Lazaro is by any normal standards incredibly clever and athletic but may not quite reach the heights required to join his brother. Devoted sibling Tristan gives Lazaro extra training, but one night a mysterious meteor hits the lake where Tristan is swimming. Poisoned, disfigured, and mentally impaired by the accident, Tristan is filled with rage and resentment, while Lazaro is torn between guilt over his brother, and the desire to succeed to honour the pair’s devotion to the mission.
In using an otherworldly backdrop for this melancholy character study, director Edouard Salier can operate in emotional extremes while keeping the storytelling simple and grounded, with a practically universal point of engagement. Most of us have experienced or witnessed sibling rivalry. Most of us will be familiar with seeing a loved one wither through sickness. But the cosmic narrative means Tristan’s decline is so much more intense and vertiginous, from an absolute physical and mental apex to severe disability in the blink of an extra-terrestrial eye. The corresponding pressure on Tristan becomes more severe, and the divide between the pair much vaster. It’s a brilliantly subtle twist of the dramatic knife. Not only that, but it also allows for some terrific, heart-wrenching makeup design, which makes one both recoil in horror and feel a guilty twinge of pity. The half mask Tristan wears adds the sense of a classic soulful monster fable to the mix.
Both actors give excellent performances and thoroughly convince as brothers. As Tristan, Peres gets the more obviously dramatic arc, requiring a complete shift in mannerisms, physicality, and speech. But Cobo impresses with the subtler way Lazaro internalises the weight of expectation and the commitment he feels to his brother and the extra strain it places on their mother (Marta Nieto, completing a trifecta of fine performances), who has sacrificed much for her sons for their entire lives already. The funereal mood is matched by Mathieu Plainfossé’s crepuscular cinematography, demonstrating that a dark colour palette doesn’t need to be indeterminate sludge. A gorgeous synth score gives serious ‘80s vibes without feeling too much like the retro Carpenter worship that’s currently omnipresent, and underscores the alchemical symbiosis Salier achieves between sci-fi and potentially mundane drama.
An incredibly potent science fiction drama, albeit one firmly more in the arthouse than the grindhouse, it precisely strikes emotional triggers that will be painfully recognisable for many viewers. It uses its heightened reality to land at deeper truths, without claiming to have all the answers. Some will be frustrated by its patient pace, and its muted tone, but it’s otherwise a hugely engaging work of real artistry.
Screens as part of Glasgow Film Festival on Sat 4 and Sun 5 Mar 2023 at Cineworld Renfrew Street – Screen 2