Welcome to Shakespeare Island

Ariel It is the result of the collision between two creative universes: that of the Galician filmmaker Lois Patiño (Samsara) and that of the Argentinian Matías Piñeiro (Hermia & Helena), who had already jointly written and directed the short film Sycorax...a kind of prequel to this film. In ArielFinally, Piñeiro only appears as a co-author of the original idea, but his influence can be traced from the synopsis itself: an actress (Agustina Muñoz, a regular collaborator of the Argentine director) arrives on an island in the Azores to participate in a theatrical performance of The storm, by Shakespeare. There he will encounter the mysterious Ariel (Irene Escolar), who explains that the islanders are not people of flesh and blood but characters from Shakespearean plays eternally repeating their roles.

The literary starting point and the interplay between reality and representation, typical of Piñeiro's work, make this film the most openly linked to fiction in Patiño's filmography, as well as the most playful and deliberately lighthearted. An atmospheric visual treatment, the care with which the landscape is filmed, and the use of strategies that transform the screen into a canvas (color shifts, superimpositions) demonstrate that this is, above all, a Patiño film. The shift towards existentialism, and PirandellianThe last third of the film is moving, but it does not resolve the feeling of contemplating a bipolar work, which is torn between meta-narrative comedy and metaphysical inquiry.