South Africa to screen Aquí based on Coetzee’s trilogy — Daily Maverick

On September 24, European Film Festival South Africa will screen Aquí, a film by Portuguese director Tiago Guedes and an adaptation of South African writer J. M. Coetzee’s Jesus trilogy. As Daily Maverick reports, the film runs for 3 hours and 20 minutes and covers material from the novels The Childhood of Jesus, The Schooldays of Jesus and The Death of Jesus.

The story of Simón and David

At the centre of the adaptation are a man named Simón and a boy named David, who arrive in a fictional country after leaving their histories and languages behind. There, they are given new names. Simón becomes the child’s guardian and tries to find a mother for David.

Simón is played by Manolo Solo, while David is played by Alex Pelaez. In the final part of the film, David is portrayed by the older actor Hugo Encuentra. The story contains biblical allusions: while studying, David writes “I am the truth” instead of the phrase “I have to tell the truth.”

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Duration and artistic choices

According to Guedes, the first cut of the film ran for 4 hours and 45 minutes. The creators sought to reduce the film to three hours, but after viewing different versions, they decided not to remove any more scenes.

Each stage of David’s life, corresponding to one of the novels in the trilogy, is marked by a change in the frame’s aspect ratio. As the plot develops, the frame narrows, creating a feeling of increasing confinement. The film has no musical accompaniment, except for the middle part, where David expresses his vision of the world through contemporary dance.

In its review, Daily Maverick notes that Aquí preserves the symbolism and philosophical complexity of the book trilogy. At the same time, the publication believes that the attempt to encompass its entire thematic scope in one film affects the pace of the narrative.