Against Nature Review (2026 Karlovy Vary IFF)
Jonás has been working in mining, carving the rock of hills for an undefined while. Returning home, he seems to wield his despotic silence, reflecting the distance he gained while being away from his family, who lives in the rural foothills of Mexico. His mother greets him with cold confusion, and his siblings shake his hand while introducing themselves by name.
Much of the story stays in the silence of Jonás, suggesting a meditative state of mind. The screen cares for the surrounding species with wider conviction, while horses of greater beauty connect with the grass and the wind. The sound and image are treated with mastery, often competing with each other before effortlessly meeting in memorable comings together. I shall admit I, next to those two, got carried away toward an ethereal limbo, forgetting the track of time, or at least the regularity of it often contained within walls. As you can probably tell by now, there is much sensitivity in the film’s register without exceeding the purpose of the screen time, resulting nearly casually in a meditative tale. Until, while well immersed, Jonás wakes up, and acts, brutally, against his nature. Or is it because of his nature?
All poetics considered, it’s almost hard to believe how candid the idea is. It’s not conveyed gradually, it’s not declared openly, but it exponentially reaches the modest protagonist. The path of Jonás makes up the path of someone so viscerally embedded in nature, so corrosively exposed to labor, that at this point, the climax in the film and in his life, is only inescapable. The Mexican filmmaker Axel Bertha (online with the alias of Losmose) is evidently interested in forces of destruction begetting more destruction. Circularity and confluence are equally central pieces. Shot in celluloid (35mm), the image, holding tight texture, parallels (alright, more figuratively) artistic visualisations of labor, earth, and body that by no means feels disconnected from today. But what truly stole my heart is the elegant control of the frame: acting as a character in its own right, the camera always knows exactly where to stand and at what distance.
Against Nature is described as experimental, and there are surely a couple elements that respond to this testing and upending character, few of which slip out of the visual language. The only element (if anyone asked) I wished had been more processed is the supporting acting. Though their presence in the frame is sparse, the cast is composed entirely of non-professionals. This can work; until premature, self-conscious gestures crack the image open, calling for attention to the making. It is a high-stakes risk for a filmmaker to take, and here it isn’t entirely justified, as the sudden awareness of the actors’ awkwardness lingers far longer than the film’s otherwise pristine touch of reality.
At any rate, Against Nature is as intuitive as it is true to its context, drawing inspiration from a real incident recorded in the newspapers and quoted at the film’s opening. Reality, fiction, and dreams are basically forged together seamlessly, without losing the grip of their location of origin. The underlying tensions, however, speak to a truly universal (physically and spiritually speaking) core, leaving an inimitable impression. I shall remember this one.
★★★★★
Premiered at the 2026 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival as part of the Proxima Competition / Director & Screenplay: Axel Bertha / Dir. of Photography: Flavia Martínez, Edson Reyes / Editor: Óscar Enríquez / Producers: Fernanda de la Peza, Axel Bertha / Mexico
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