Utama (2022)
Utama, which takes its title from the Quechua word for "our home", arrived in 2022 carrying a substantial weight of festival expectation. It won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, placing it in a lineage of landscape-driven, politically conscious films from Latin America that use vast, indifferent terrain as both setting and subject. Bolivia's altiplano, sitting at over 3,600 metres above sea level, is one of the more unforgiving stretches of land on the planet, and the film uses it to examine something that sits well beyond simple survivalism: the erosion of a way of life that has persisted for centuries, and the slow, grinding pressure of climate change on communities that contributed the least to it. For context, Bolivia has lost roughly half of its glacial coverage since the 1980s, and the communities of the high plains have felt that loss in very practical, daily terms. Utama is not a documentary, but it wears that reality close to the skin.
The film marks the feature debut of Alejandro Loayza Grisi, a Bolivian director who had previously worked in advertising and short-form production before bringing this project to life through a co-production arrangement spanning Bolivia, France and Uruguay, with LaMayor Cine, Alpha Violet Production and Alma Films sharing duties. It is a lean, stripped-down production, clearly made with care rather than cash, and it sits comfortably alongside other recent arthouse films from the region that have drawn international attention, among them Monos and Murina, films that also locate human drama within landscapes that feel almost hostile to human presence. Loayza Grisi worked with cinematographer Barbara Alvarez, and the visual ambition on show throughout is remarkable given the production's evident modesty. The film runs to a tight 88 minutes, though as you will read, that economy of runtime does not necessarily translate to an economy of pace.
The two central performances come from non-professional actors. José Calcina and Luisa Quispe play Virginio and Sisa, the elderly Quechua couple at the heart of the story, and both are from communities with genuine connections to the region depicted. Their presence lends the film an authenticity that would have been very difficult to manufacture otherwise. Santos Choque appears as the couple's grandson, Clever, who arrives from the city and functions as a kind of bridge between the old world and whatever comes next. Félix Ticona and Placide Ali round out the small cast. It is, in many ways, a film built around faces and silences rather than conventional performance, and that choice shapes everything about how the story unfolds.
Utama (2022), is the debut feature from Bolivian director Alejandro Loayza Grisi. The premise is as stark as the landscape it’s set in: an elderly Quechua couple, Virginio and his wife Sisa (played by José Calcina and Luisa Quispe), are living out their days in the unforgiving, high-altitude desert of Bolivia.
It’s a brutally harsh environment for anyone, let alone an aging couple, and their quiet existence is thrown into turmoil when the local water supply suddenly dries up. They are then faced with an agonizing choice: abandon the land they’ve known their entire lives to relocate with their family, or stay and risk everything to the desert.
On paper, it sounds like a gripping survival drama, but in execution, I have to be honest: this is one of the slowest films I’ve ever sat through. It genuinely feels like it’s being shot in real time. The dialogue is super thin, with long, agonizing stretches where absolutely nothing happens other than the characters staring out at the horizon or going about their mundane chores. Because the narrative is so deliberately stripped back, the story itself becomes incredibly predictable. You know exactly where it’s going from the first ten minutes, and the glacial pacing just makes the journey there feel like an absolute test of patience.
However, I will give massive credit where it’s due, because the technical craft on display is nothing short of breathtaking. The cinematography is absolutely beautiful, capturing the stunning, sweeping landscapes and relying on gorgeous natural lighting that makes every single frame look like a painting. It is honestly one of the best-looking films I’ve seen in years, and it’s paired with a sublime, haunting soundtrack that perfectly underscores the isolation and melancholy of the desert.
Utama is a visually and aurally magnificent film that is ultimately let down by a painfully sluggish pace and a paper-thin script. It’s a gorgeous watch, but you’ll definitely be checking the runtime a few times before it’s over.
Utama is the sort of film that festivals love and general audiences tend to find frustrating, and honestly, both reactions are entirely reasonable. It belongs to a tradition of slow cinema, patient and painterly, that prizes atmosphere over incident, and there will always be a divide between viewers who find that mode meditative and those who find it simply inert. For those with a particular interest in Latin American cinema, or in films that use landscape as language (the similarly unhurried Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives offers a useful comparison point), Utama offers real rewards on a purely visual level. Whether those rewards justify the full journey is, it seems, genuinely a matter of how much you are willing to bring to the screen yourself. Some films ask you to watch them. This one asks you to wait with them, and not everyone will want to stay.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2026-06-13
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Utama (2022) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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