Faith Healer Begins to Question in a Handsome Amazon Mood Piece

Rebecca Byrne, the intriguing teenage protagonist of “Transamazonia,” possesses an otherworldly aura well-suited to someone who quite literally fell from the sky. As a child, she was the lone survivor of a plane crash deep within the Amazon basin. Dubbed a miracle child by the media, she stayed in the rainforest and earned a reputation as a Christian faith healer. This mysterious backdrop, enhanced by Helena Zengel’s enigmatic performance, blurs the lines between genuine miracles and clever branding. Such ambiguity drives Pia Marais’s captivating environmental fable, where both religious missions and aggressive deforestation threaten Indigenous identities.

Premiering in Locarno’s main competition and with an upcoming slot at the New York Film Festival, “Transamazonia” comes from South African-born writer-director Marais. Her fourth feature, unlike her previous film “Layla Fourie,” is set in a little-portrayed region of Brazil and avoids exoticizing it. Marais collaborated extensively with the Assurini people of the Trocará Indigenous Territory, credited as associate producers. However, despite the film’s ambition and conscientious approach, the characters’ opacity hinders deeper emotional engagement, though the narrative remains intriguing.

Rebecca isn’t isolated in her Amazonian refuge. Her American missionary father, Lawrence (Jeremy Xido), sees the crash’s aftermath as a divine sign and establishes his mission in an abandoned Baptist camp. He uses Rebecca as the centerpiece of his flamboyant evangelical sermons, attracting Indigenous locals who believe in her healing powers. Bathed in vibrant turquoise light, Lawrence’s showmanship raises doubts about his sincerity. Whether Rebecca holds real healing abilities is uncertain, and Zengel’s portrayal of a still-traumatized, introspective young woman adds to this uncertainty. Nine years post-crash, Rebecca remains clueless about her past, a gap maintained deliberately by her father. However, through friendships with local teens, she begins to reassess her life’s narrative.

Rebecca’s supposed magical abilities attract the attention of Alves (Rômulo Braga), head of an illegal deforestation firm, who requests her help for his comatose wife. This demand thrusts the mission into a local conflict—if Rebecca can cure Alves’s wife, he promises to cease deforestation operations. The Byrnes find themselves in a precarious position, seen as both outsiders and potential allies. This scenario questions whether the mission truly serves the community or simply exploits its belief systems for its own gain.

“Transamazonia” operates as a fraught neo-western, with the lush, dense forest—captured by Mathieu de Montgrand’s vivid cinematography—replacing the traditional desert as the genre’s lawless landscape. This territory is contested by its rightful Indigenous keepers and those who believe ownership is theirs for the taking. Marais’s script, co-written with Willem Drost and Martin Rosefeldt, maintains a neutral stance regarding the Church’s role, observing the interplay between the conflicting factions from a distance. The logging company serves as a clear antagonist, yet the film remains guarded in its sympathies, providing respectful but less intimate portrayals of Indigenous characters.

Atmospherically, “Transamazonia” is rich and immersive, filled with the Amazon’s unique sounds and restless energy. It showcases a world worth defending by its native inhabitants and evokes a sense of how easily others can be consumed by it, losing their moral compass. For Lawrence, the Amazon is a place for reinvention; for Rebecca, escaping it might offer her a new beginning.

Source: Particle News