Cinematic Runoff: Haptic Perception of Agrochemical Catastrophe in Claudia Llosa's Distancia de rescate

Abstract

Abstract: Claudia Llosa's Distancia de rescate (2021), a film based on Samanta Schweblin's award-winning novel of the same name, portrays the failure of a mother— and, by extension, a whole town—to notice the life-threatening levels of toxic chemicals accumulating in local water sources and surrounding fields. With failed perception as a thematic driver of the film's narrative, this article studies how gripping, haptic elements in the film's imagery and sound sharpen audience perception throughout the film's recursive discourse. How do the narrative and audiovisual strategies evoke a more full-bodied spectator experience and thereby convey the threat of pesticide runoff beyond the screen? A formal analysis of the sensual qualities of the unusual dialogic voice-over narration, the judicious use of tightly framed shots, and the denaturalization of environmental noises explains how Llosa creates a texture of habitable space that viewers perceive haptically. In this way the danger is not only seen and heard, but also felt.