Tracks

Director: John Curran
With: Mia Wasikowska, Adam Driver

I keep on mentioning films here in my blog how happy and excited I am to finally watch the movies I've looked forward for months because of their awesome trailers. Tracks is no different. In fact, it's one of the few films I've seen its trailer first before reading anything about it. When I saw its trailer, I thought it's BEAUTIFUL.

I consider myself a nature lover and it's my favorite things to watch whenever I travel. So Tracks is like a movie perfect for me because it's a story, a true story by the way, of a woman named Robyn Davidson who traveled for nine months with camels across 2,700 kilometers from Australian Deserts to the Indian Ocean. Mia Wasikowska stars the film as Robyn along with Adam Driver as Rick Smolan.

This film  oozes with beauty. Numerous stunning wide establishing shots of deserts all throughout the movie. It's like something you'll see in a television appliances store because of how pleasing it looks and how friendly it is to the eyes.

Cinematographer Mandy Walker is the true hero of the film but John Curran's direction and the leads' performances are also nothing short of stupendous artistry. Add Garth Stevenson's piano score that ironically matches the aboriginal natives and culture of the Australian deserts. I never thought of the sound of the piano to fit this kind of movie but it made the movie more elegant than it already was because of the combination of the finesse accomplishment in this film.

There's nothing more fascinating to watch a simple and mysterious woman who considers herself a nomad travel by herself. Especially if it's Mia Wasikowska who's always been a mysterious actress to me. Watching her work with the camels and her black dog is truly impressive. She showed so much braveness in this film and it helps that she's perfect for the role. Her every move, the silent thoughts written on her face, her body language in a desert backdrop is like magic.

Curran accompanied the chronicles of Davidson's intimate travel with a series of beautiful nature shots back-to-back with Mia Wasikowska, who had a lot of gorgeous closeups in this film. It's the silence of the film that really made this film magical because even in its silence and limited dialogue, Curran let his viewers feel and think the same thing as his lead. It's whenever the sun-French-kissed Mia wanders alone with her camels and a dog that glues your eyes to the screen because it's so quiet, so graceful, so amazing and just like I've mentioned many times already, it's just simply beautiful.

Mia is amazing in this. She's silent and tough throughout the movie but there's one scene that broke her character and she impressed me so much. It always pays off to be reserved throughout the film and let your guard down when the right time comes. Her chemistry with Adam Driver is also there. Adam Driver proves that he's just not an emo weirdo from Girls because he can also play geeky and appealing at the same time.

But again, I'm gushing over the silence and the beauty of the film.  It's the same reason why I love Lost in Translation so much. It gives you a glimpse of a human's psyche even when there's no dialogue and the scene only relies on facial expressions. It's so much more powerful in expressing one's thoughts.

Now I can't wait for Jean-Marc Vallée's Wild. I think it's safe to assume that it will inevitably compared with Tracks.