THE VISITOR / EL VISITANTE
A film by Martín Boulocq
(Bolivia/Uruguay, 2022, 86 min. In Spanish and Quechua with English subtitles)

Humberto is an ex-convict with a tormented past. Three years sober, he returns home in search of a new life, but still plagued by a past tragedy. As he mulls over his future and any job prospects in front of him, a friend bluntly tells him: “A stigma is a stigma.”

He now has a real chance to reconnect with his estranged daughter Aleida, but first he has to contend with his in-laws, Carlos and Elizabeth, who now look after Aleida. Carlos, a wealthy Argentinian pastor deeply connected in the Evangelical community in Bolivia, decides to take a chance on Humberto and bring him back into the church fold. As Humberto begins to attend church in order to ingratiate himself into Carlos’ network—and bond with Aleida—he pursues a few jobs in the hopes of making enough income to retrieve his daughter from the influence of Carlos and Elizabeth. What quickly transpires is an emotionally fraught ‘tug-of-war’ between Humberto and Carlos, in their pursuit of ‘saving’ and commandeering Aleida’s future.

Martin Boulocq’s The Visitor is an arresting and melancholic drama with sharp socio-political insights and an impressive level of cinematic sophistication, one that deftly explores how intolerance can seep into religion and have hypnotic influence and power on vulnerable people. —Jose Rodriguez