Bajo La Tierra: Love Lives on in the Soil and Air in 19th Century Tale of Toil and Loss

Pablo Guillen’s Bajo La Tierra is a 17-minute drama that successfully distils heartbreak onto the screen where others may have chosen horror. There is a certain bravery and restraint to that choice that must be admired. Even elevated horror can become too much of a good thing. 

Instead, Bajo La Tierra is more focused on ambition, the kind that electrifies a whole body and motivates the kind of toil that could erode it if it were not for that very animating charge. Set between 1826 and 1845, it follows Alma (the adult played by Susana Elena Boyce), her mother (Ivette González), and their picturesque cottage in the bosom of hills. 

Alma’s mission to be rich for the two of them (the childhood declaration of intent uttered by Allyson Juliette) through pottery replaces the characteristic breakneck speed associated with modern-day narratives on the same subject with the physicality of labour. Alenjandro Armijo’s measured cutting allows Boyce’s performance to bespeak the seriousness of her intent. Though not shown in long takes, the intensity of effort is so laborious and so grounded in the body, that time becomes impossible not to feel in all its leaden materiality. 

The plot itself is thin, rather like folk legends, but Peter McCollough’s cinematography transforms it into a mouthwatering, practically tearjerking, feast of beauty. The day shots are movingly, classically lit and composed. In a night shot, bad news is delivered as the sinking gleam of lanterns against a landscape so shrouded by the dark that nothing else besides the solitary, glowing heart of the house can resist its imperial force. It seems to call out to its occupants to return. It is too dark in the world, the house will burn itself out alone.  

The climax, perhaps a smidge on the nose, still rings with the reverberations of grief (credit due to Maxwell Karmazyn and Brandon Roberts original score) as realisation sets in. But Boyce’s face, shining with tears as much as sheer joy, reminds you what a wonderful thing it is to love and be loved. What is grief if not the work we do to keep alive the ones we love?  

Watch Bajo La Tierra Short Film Trailer