Story/Mood: Shortly after she’s received an award in Switzerland, fashion designer Lina (Isabel Aimé González Solano) jumps off a bridge into an icy cold river. She survives and returns to Buenos Aires where she develops a secret phobia of water and struggles to resume her normal life. Swiss-Argentinian director Milagros Mumenthaler’s The Currents has been described as a cross between Hitchcock’s Marnie and Todd Hayne’s Safe. It’s a suspenseful, moody, and deliberately crafted film about a woman who is torn between the radically conflicting desires to continue living in the normal world and to allow herself to fall apart.
Tiny clues are scattered throughout the movie which provide hints—that are never fully answered—about the cause for her suffering. But in the end, the cause doesn’t matter. What matters is how Lina navigates her way through the strange, dislocated state that she finds herself in.
The Look: The mesmerizing opening sequence of the film takes place wordlessly. The award presentation, Lina’s wandering through town, the longshot of her jump into the river, her return to the hotel wrapped in a metallic blanket all happen without words. Lina’s blue coat, the antique street lights, the dark staircase to the bridge from which she’s going to jump do the work of storytelling. Everything you see on screen has a role to play. Lina’s hair functions like its own character. Her loving but somewhat controlling husband doesn’t want her to cut it. She struggles to wash it. A shot of her from behind with her hair spilt over the back of the sofa like snakes or unruly waves draws you into the mystery.
The sound design is also striking. There are moments when the background noise is so loud that—just as it is for Lina—it was hard for me to concentrate on what was being said. Mumenthaler explains: “At first I hadn’t realized that the first seven minutes of the movie go without dialogue. But since the very first shot, it’s told from Lina’s subjective point of view. The sounds are at the beginning; they’re very subtle. It’s almost like a fan going with this metallic dirt to it. Both the sound and the image are thought of like it’s her perception: what she is listening to, what she is hearing, where she chooses to pay attention both in her gaze and the way she wants to be seen.”
Crew: In a press statement, Mumenthaler said that it was important for her to maintain a sense of mystery. “I made a conscious choice to start the film with a mystery and sustain it throughout the narrative. What’s happening to her? Where are we headed to?”
Memorable Moment: When Lina goes to a hair salon, which doesn’t look at all like the upmarket places she’s been frequenting so far, the stylist knows her as Cata (short for Catalina). It’s clear the way the two women speak to each other that they have a history but it’s never explicitly addressed. I only figured it out as I pieced together the hints later on—which clued me into the differences between the world that Lina came from and the one she now inhabits.
Where to Watch: Currently playing in limited release in theaters, with more to come. And then—streaming, starting July 14th!
Runtime 104 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.
