El Trayecto (2024)
★★ — El Trayecto (2024)
The Dominican Republic has a modest but growing presence in world cinema, and for most international audiences it remains something of a blind spot, overshadowed by its larger neighbours in the Spanish-speaking world. The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) is probably the film most people associate with the country, though that is very much an American production using the island as a backdrop rather than a home-grown story. El Trayecto (2024) is something rather different: a short, low-key Dominican comedy-drama that plants itself firmly in the landscape and culture of the region, specifically the lush peninsula of Samaná on the country's north-east coast. At just 73 minutes, it makes no pretension to being an epic, positioning itself instead as a breezy slice-of-life road movie, or more accurately a walk movie, following four young people trekking between two beaches.
The film is directed by Francisco Adolfo Valdez, and details about the production are sparse. No major studio is attached, and the budget appears to be modest, which is consistent with the kind of grassroots filmmaking that has been producing interesting work across the Global South in recent years, as seen in films like Tiger Stripes (2023) and Megdan: Between Water and Fire (2024). The story is a coming-of-age piece built around four characters whose contrasting personalities generate both the comedy and whatever emotional weight the film is after. Yasser Michelén and Richarson Díaz anchor one end of the character spectrum, playing off each other in terms of temperament, while Camila Santana and Karina Valdez round out the group. It is the kind of ensemble where the chemistry between the performers matters as much as the script, and with a runtime this short, there is not a great deal of time for anyone to make a particularly deep impression. What the film does have going for it, almost by default, is its setting. The natural scenery of Samaná is the sort of thing that makes a location feel like a character in its own right, the kind of lush, sun-drenched terrain that is genuinely pleasant to spend time in even when the drama around it is polished but unremarkable.
Comedy, especially physical or situational comedy, is always a tricky thing to export. What lands in one culture can feel flat or baffling elsewhere, and Spanish-language comedy in particular has its own rhythms and conventions that do not always translate. For context, the film sits within a broader tradition of light comedies built around group journeys and character clashes, a format with a long pedigree across world cinema. Whether El Trayecto succeeds in that tradition is, of course, the question.
A-Z World Movie Tour Dominican Republic It wasn't bad. It wasn't that great either. It's supposed to be a comedy but I didn't laugh or even smile one single time which is why I think it has to be marked as below average. The 4x characters were each interesting and distinct enough to at least hold my attention and the Dominican Republic is beautiful to look. Some guy gets his dick out which happens alot in Spanish comedies I've noticed.
That comedy-doesn't-travel problem is a real one, and I find myself thinking about it even when a film is clearly made with genuine warmth. Four distinct characters and a beautiful setting is a solid enough foundation, and I can see what Valdez was going for, but a comedy that doesn't raise so much as a smile is fighting an uphill battle from the start, whatever else it gets right. If you are curious about recent world cinema from corners of the globe that rarely get a look-in on this blog, you might also find All That's Left of You (2025) worth a read. Sometimes the journey itself is the point. Sometimes, though, you just want to reach the other beach a bit faster.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 2024 | Watched: 2025-06-10
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