Friday One Sheet: THE ECHO

The power of a single image is full on display for in the key art for Tatiana Huezo's rural Mexico documentary, The Echo.

A child hugs a tree. Simple. Not so fast. The colour scheme is cool blues with a hint of muted pink (also note the subtle, out of focus, blob of light above the child's hands near their face), which suggests a kind of faerie magic and folk lore over verdant naturalism.

The child, eyes closed in muted ecstasy, is communicating with the spirit of the tree. There are white tendrils coming from the tree, which both underscore this idea, as if the trees were indeed communicating. And then there is the scrawled title card, which for better or worse, reminds me of Lars Von Trier's eco-psychodrama Antichrist (as well as that film's Criterion cover).

But I digress. The Echo is not an eco-horror (the trailer for its Berlinale debut is embedded below, and suggests more a fly-on-the-wall bit of observational storytelling, perhaps along the lines of something like Honeyland), however, the design of its poster does communicate a certain big screen cinematic quality that is most definitely delivered in the documentary itself.

I wish I was in Berlin to see it on the big screen.