‘Five Years, Four Months’ Biarritz Review: A Mother’s Search For Her Missing Son Slips Into The Uncanny In This Colombian Drama

A mother’s search for what happened to her missing son is the human and emotional core of the geographic odyssey traced by Five Years, Four Months (Cinco años, cuatro meses), the Colombian film fresh off a run of prizes at the Karlovy Vary and San Sebastián festivals. From first frame to last, it stays with Martha Baquero (Jenny Nava), who for the span of time named in the title has been looking for a son who was never seen again and who, she suspects, was killed amid the violence that paramilitaries and subversive groups have inflicted on Colombia.

Martha is visibly devastated by the loss. She pours every waking hour into finding out what became of him, to the point that she seems unable to tend to her younger son, who is left in the care of relatives or neighbors. Through the first stretch of the film, the work of the Colombian directing duo methodically follows her steps. Weighed down and nearly lost in her own thoughts, she searches unmarked graves across the country, only to learn each time that her efforts have led nowhere.

On one of these trips, Martha meets Sandra (Carmiña Martínez), a woman in a similar situation who has been searching in vain for her own son for far longer. Sandra tells her she is about to see a clairvoyant who, she has been assured, could put her in contact with her son and at least let her learn what happened to him. Martha agrees to take part, even though it will cost more money than she has, demand a difficult journey to remote corners of the region, and leave us suspecting she may be the victim of some kind of scam.

Five Years, Four Months bets on a realist, serene and at times slightly ponderous style that tries to bring the viewer into step with how Martha moves through her experiences. In the same spirit, when she sets out in search of a more supernatural connection to her son, the film makes room for the near-fantastic in an entirely natural way. It does so with barely any change in tone, formal resources or staging, treating it simply as a more enigmatic way for reality to manifest itself, a porous zone between the imagined and the real.

The dark cinematography, a soundtrack thick with ambient noise, and a calm but tense pacing more typical of horror than social realism give the film a somber, almost funereal mood. It reflects not only the all-but-certain fate of the missing son but also the way Martha lives, as if she were already dead. It’s true that the pacing can feel narcotic at times, but it is a tempo that meshes perfectly with how its protagonist lives and feels.

Gradually, the bond with Sandra becomes central, especially in allowing Martha to open up and talk about what happened and how she feels. A woman who says next to nothing throughout the film can finally tell her story and break down while speaking with Sandra about her son’s disappearance. After following her through a film in which she never seems able to let go, the scene is doubly moving, and Nava plays it with subtlety and without histrionics.

As it moves toward a resolution closer to the fantastic, Five Years, Four Months never fully turns its back on the social and political questions implicit in the disappearance of Martha’s son. On the contrary, it opens the way for a human connection that helps its protagonist set down the heavy burden she carries. That connection runs not only between the living and the dead, but among those who remain here, on this side of that border.