Turistas (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 director Alicia Scherson shows with ‘Turistas’ in a dryly comical way the carefree and sad reality of backpacker life, where everyone is desperate for company – whether you have just been abandoned by your partner, do not know your sexual orientation or want to play badminton a little out of boredom.

‘Turistas’ only surpasses itself through the modest, concentrated interpretation of Aline Küppenheim, who plays a woman with life experience but no zest for life. She finds it – or so it seems – 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 – portrayed in detail rather than grandiose. Scherson first sketches and plays with comedic elements—she adds a bunch of bored gothic 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 Ulrik de Noor to hang out with each other for too long.

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 indecision of the characters, who have not chosen each other, who do not want to continue to see each other, but nevertheless hand each other keys, because they know that their contact is essentially transient; that is the merit of ‘Turistas’.