Review: Tourists (2009)

Directed by: Alicia Scherson | 104 minutes | drama | Actors: Aline Küppenheim, Diego Noguera, Marcelo Alonso, Pablo Ausensi, Viviana Herrera, Sofía Géldrez, M. Helena Bernalies, Claudio Rodriguez, Tichi Lobos

This tragicomic and timely sensitive drama about a woman’s quest for definitive life choices will be recognizable to some and boring to others. But with ‘Turistas’, director Alicia Scherson at least shows in a dryly funny way the carefree and sad reality of a backpacker’s life, where everyone is in need of company – whether you have just been abandoned by your partner, do not know your sexual orientation or want to play badminton a bit out of boredom.

‘Turistas’ further transcends itself only through the restrained, concentrated rendition of Aline Küppenheim, who plays a woman with experience of life but no zest for life. She finds them – or it only seems so – in what suddenly comes her way due to circumstances. Read: a backpacking wobbler, a run-down park ranger who was once a famous singer, and Chilean nature – detailed rather than grandiose. Scherson first sketches and plays with comedic elements – she introduces another pair of bored goth twin sisters who run the campground – then touches on an intimate moment between biochemist Carla and ranger Orlando, then loses her own line again due to Carla and To let Ulrik de Noor spend too long with each other.

Despite the pleasant pace and the excellent Küppenheim, ‘Turistas’ goes on just a little too long to linger. What remains in the memory is the carefree indecisiveness of the characters, who have not chosen each other, do not want to keep seeing each other but still hand each other keys, because they know that their contact is essentially transitory; that is the merit of ‘Turistas’.