Utama

In this newly restored Bolivian classic, a man remembers his life while on a journey which will help him expiate his sins and which will result in his death. The focus on the story is on a man who has betrayed everyone he knows. He is planning to perform an ancient ritual dance which will end with his life being taken. He journeys from where he was living back to the village where most of the people he wronged still live. As he journeys, carrying his distinctive dance costume, his story is told in flashbacks. Once he gets there, he gets involved in the affairs of the villagers once more.

A small group of indigenous Bolivian soldiers, under the commandment of a retired German General, wander in the Chaco desert looking for the Paraguayan enemy that they haven’t seen for months, and that they will never find. The monotonous grey landscape of the forest confuses them. The lack of water and food pressures them and all of their decisions are wrong, weakening the group’s spirit and generating a violent and quarrelsome environment between all of them, officials and soldiers, to the point that they try and get rid of one another. They are overcome by despair and constant uncertainty.