Restored 1959 gem ‘Araya’ is stunning

Published 6:41 pm Thursday, November 12, 2009

A few times a year, the movie calendar offers an older film that’s been restored, even in some minor way, and re-released. Usually these are mid-level classics, and always good (sometimes glorious) to see again.

But mid-level classic doesn’t begin to describe “Araya,” a 1959 film so obscure most film guidebooks probably don’t even list it. In other words, this release is less a restoration than a revelation.

The title refers to a marshy area in northern Venezuela, where locals have harvested salt and fish for hundreds of years. Venezuelan filmmaker Margot Benacerraf, who was in her early 30s when she shot the film, became fascinated by the grueling work performed every day by Araya’s natives.

The film looks like a documentary, although it is actually not (the family units described in the movie were arranged by the director for her own storytelling purposes).

The film also looks like poetry.

Following a 24-hour structure, Benacerraf tracks the daily routine in three arenas: salt, fish and pottery.

The most arresting of these is the salt harvesting, an astounding ritual that begins with digging up salt from the floor of the marsh, bringing it ashore, drying it and piling it into large white mountains.

This taxing work is performed by different generations of men. The salt is so abrasive it opens wounds on skin, which then become even more painful with prolonged exposure to the salt.

Men, women and children stand on the beach and help haul in vast nets, which contain the previous evening’s catch. The women then take the fish in baskets from village to village, calling out their wares to sell.

As the narration and the rhythm of the film itself suggest, these rounds have been going on this way for decades, if not centuries.

“Araya” is shot in luminous black and white, which looks great in the new print being distributed. The film’s return was instigated by indie distributor Milestone Films, the company that did the superb recent restoration of “The Exiles,” in collaboration with various technical agencies.

The film actually had success at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959, sharing an important prize with the quickly enshrined classic, “Hiroshima, Mon Amour.” But it went almost unseen after that and Margot Benacerraf, who is still alive, never made another film (although she has had a busy career, working for Venezuela’s Institute for Culture and its national cinematheque).

It took 50 years, but it was worth the wait.

“Araya”

A restored 1959 film that follows a 24-hour cycle in a marshy area of Venezuela, where the natives have harvested salt and fish in the same way for centuries. The stunning black-and-white photography captures the daily rituals of this work, in a film that was nearly unseen for 50 years after its initial success at the Cannes Film Festival.

Rated: Not rated; probably PG for nudity

Showing: Northwest Film Forum