This drama from El Salvador has several commendable features, starting with a tender, sympathetic central performance from Laura Osma as Josefina, a sweet young woman who discovers she has an exceptional sense of smell. However, something doesn’t quite smell right about the way the film clumsily layers uplift and violence, served up with excessively stylised visuals and sound. It’s as if writer-director Alfonso Quijada, better known hitherto as an actor and producer, doesn’t know if he wants to make a telenovela-style melodrama or something more elevated and arty – in the tradition of Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow or Lila Avilés’s films The Chambermaid and Tótem – with long takes and oblique storytelling strategies. In the end, it fails to satisfy either ambition.
Josefina and her younger brother Alfredo (William Castillo) lost their mother not long ago and seem to have no father in the picture; they live with their godmother in a rural part of El Salvador. Josefina picks coffee on an estate owned by Don Villagran (Boris Barraza) while Alfredo is supposed to be going to school. However, he has taken to bunking off with some bad boys, as Josefina’s friend Dalia (Emy Mena) describes them.
The main plot observes Josefina as she learns to become a coffee taster, trained first by her grandmother and then by Villagran himself. This leads to her winning competitions in the big city and being offered well-paying jobs at rival plantations. But Alfredo messes it all up by going along with his pals when they try to rob a rich local gangster who apparently raped Josefina (it’s never quite spelled out) earlier in the film, and lands himself in deep trouble.
Using some fancy new digital camera features, cinematographer Andy Hodgson shoots the film in an ultra-wide format, so the whole movie unfolds in a panoramic aspect ratio that’s a bit distracting and presumably will look less than its best if viewed anywhere other than a proper cinema. On the other hand, the locations are stunning: a mix of tropical jungle and picturesque villages, bedecked in a riot of brightly coloured textiles that coordinate with the women’s clothing. As a Pinterest board, this is terrific; as a feature film, it’s less satisfying.
• The Whisper of Silence is released on 27 March on digital platforms.
