Retrospective

In this latest from IMPAC award winner Vásquez (The Sound of Things Falling), director Sergio Cabrera is attending a retrospective film festival in his honor when he receives news of the accidental death of his father, the actor Fausto Cabrera. From there begins another instance of retrospection, as the narration jumps back to Sergio’s grandparents and their involvement on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. They escape across the ocean, ultimately settling in Colombia. Recruited to teach Spanish, the family moves to the China and embraces communism, working on a communal farm and in factories; Sergio and his sister Marianella train as underground guerrilla fighters, spreading their ideology to Colombia under deplorable conditions in the jungle. They ultimately abandon communism, disillusioned with its myopia, and the narrative is pervaded by a strong presence of the past and the power of memory that typifies Vásquez’s work. Despite the strong portrayal of apparently fictional characters, this is ultimately a work of autofiction closely based on the real lives of film director Cabrera and his thespian father, with Vásquez basing his narrative on interviews and other media.