Around 1993, Paraguayan artist Enrique Collar made a painting called “Novenario”, named that way because of the nine days of prayers that traditionally must be kept when a loved one dies in the devout interior of the artist’s country. Now he returns to that place where time sits still and to its humble, beaten inhabitants in order to make them tell a story that takes place during that Novena. Juan is a craftsman, a “poet of the land” with a face roughened by country life and a modest home by the road. Since he was the oldest son of his widow mother, he had to take care of her for years, and put off his own aspirations. The death of the woman and the nine days of praying will catalyze Juan’s long waiting: this might be his last chance he has to turn the pain of his loss into a freedom that will fatally take the form of an uprooted feeling. With the rigor of a documentary but maintaining a natural and pictorial aesthetic –made of wisely composed, long shots– Novena sheds light on some of the many contradictions, dreams and anguishes of today’s Paraguay.
