“Eureka”, a contemplative shamanic film on the wings of time

Lisandro Alonso is one of the rare but regular Argentine directors distributed in France. His latest film deals with animist spirituality in South America.

Unclassifiable, at the crossroads of documentary and fiction, Eureka is also at the crossroads of an anachronistic western and exotic spirituality. On screens Wednesday March 28, Eureka traces the initiatory journey of Sadie, a teenager who will reconnect with her South American roots in the heart of the Amazon jungle.

A police officer on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Alaina, constantly called upon, turns off the radio in her vehicle. His niece Sadie waits for him until the end of the night with her grandfather. He takes his granddaughter across space and time to the Amazon jungle where she perceives the dreams of the forest dwellers. She discovers another facet of the world where the spirit is in communion with nature.

Lisandro Alonso constructs his film like so many paintings which gradually interpenetrate to construct only one. Initially chronicling a police officer who quits his duties, her young niece Sadie, for whom she is responsible, quickly takes over, to become the main character of the film. Her grandfather will reveal to the teenager her origins which will open her to another vision of the world.

Spiritual nature

A reclusive child, paradoxically locked in the immensity of the desert plains of South Dakota, Sadie reconnects with those who remained in the “wild state”, her ancestors whom time has not touched. Indian, she does not recognize herself in the black and white western that she watches on television at the beginning of the film. Unsatisfied and in search of origins, without a father, she is loved and educated by an aunt who is busy with her work as a police officer. She too is elsewhere, like a paradox compared to the clichés of the “rebellious Indian”. Sadie’s grandfather will take his granddaughter on a journey by freeing her astral body, to meet the inhabitants and spirits of the forest, and thus reconnect with their roots.

Like alternative medicines, spiritualities, and in particular shamanism, fascinate the West, given the numerous publications or documentaries about them. Eureka does not tell a story, but an initiation, a discovery which takes its time, sometimes a little too much, but whose charm works. We think of Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee) or Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke). Like them, a filmmaker of a spiritual nature, Lisandro Alonso creates esoteric images and a story, at the height of their intentions: soaring.

The sheet

Gender : Drama
Director: Lisandro Alonso
Actors: Viggo Mortensen, Chiara Mastroianni, Alaina Clifford, Sadie Lapointe
Country : Argentina, Germany, France, Mexico, Portugal
Duration : 2h27
Exit : February 28, 2024
Distributer : The pact

Synopsis: Alaina is overwhelmed by her job as a police officer on the Pine Ridge Reservation. She decides not to answer her radio anymore. His niece, Sadie, waits for his return for a long night, in vain. Sadie, sad, decides to begin her journey with the help of her grandfather. She flies through time and space to South America. She will no longer watch black and white westerns, which do not represent her. Everything seems different to her when she begins to perceive the dreams of other Indians who live in the forest. His conclusions are uncertain… Birds do not speak to humans, but if only we could understand them, they would undoubtedly have some truths to transmit to us.