Coast of Death

The coast of death lies on Spain’s Galician coast and is aptly named so for its treacherous waters that have extinguished lives and wrecked ships. The still frames of Lois Patiño’s documentary give one the luxury of contemplation of this storied place, of noticing the shifts in cloud formations or the differences in height between the ceaseless crashing of waves against the rocks as the small figures of people shield themselves against the force of the oncoming water. Coast of Death does not argue, in a series of close-ups, that the human face is a landscape itself. On the contrary, Patiño edits together extreme wide-shots in which people frequently appear as small parts of the landscape; as parts of a greater whole. But, aurally they are given precedence, as their voices ring clear, no matter how indistinguishable and far off their bodies are from the camera. Although Patiño touches on the tempestuous relationship between people (and people’s machines) and nature, with each side being able to scar the other, this is not a film with a political or environmental agenda. Coast of Death refuses reductive polemics in favor of being nobly expansive in its presentation of a specific topographic point. –Veronika Ferdman