Berlin Review: ‘Robe Of Gems’

Competing for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, director and writer Natalia Lopez Gallardo’s film Robe Of Gems tackles loss and trauma and how three women individually deal with the fallout of searching for a missing person.

The sound of the cicadas starts the film off, and there is a haze over the first shot. It’s a neutral place to begin the film as it introduces three women searching for a missing person. Maria (Antonia Olivares), a housekeeper and worker for the local drug cartel, is searching for her missing sister. Isabel (Nailea Norvind), the woman Maria works for, wants to help her in the search but is warned that this isn’t her concern, and the people she’s dealing with are dangerous. Roberta (Aida Roa) is the policewoman investigating Maria’s sisters’ disappearance, and whose son Adán (Juan Daniel Garcia Treviño) is involved with the same cartel she suspects of being responsible.

Each woman has their method of gathering information, and in doing so, they sacrifice something meaningful in their lives. Isabel has given up her family to look for answers. Maria works with killers and wants to quit but can’t, and Roberta’s relationship with her son implodes. Although each of their journeys ends in a tragic event, Lopez Gallardo’s script isn’t always clear how they reach the conclusions they do.

The director makes some odd choices. There’s a repeat of shots that include only one person in the frame while two people are talking; a conversation will happen in the background. But the cinematic concentration is on a task like wood chopping; the focus is on the space the subject takes up, but rarely on the subject; two people are on screen, but one is blurred out of sight; or we see actors talking but don’t hear the dialogue.

Robe Of Gems‘ has cinematic oddities — there are many shots of actors from the back. The camera lingers there. It’s such a grating, patience-testing experience but does serve a purpose as it isolates the character from their reality. This works once or twice, but the movie is overwhelmed with these types of shots which deprives the audience of on-screen interpersonal interaction.

López Gallardo drenches Gems in natural light, which works for some scenes but makes others challenging to interpret when you can’t see an environment in its entirety. This awkward editing prevents viewers from gathering enough information to keep up with the story that’s being told. One scene will feature a woman lying in her bed, and in the bed next scene, someone’s getting hit in the back with a bat with no explanation how it got to this point.

There are some beautifully framed shots throughout, and Lopez Gallardo’s competent and steady camera control creates a poetic, surreal atmosphere that makes the film look good. The actors read flat at first, but it makes sense as this is the result of trauma and dread and constantly looking over your shoulder. With Norvind being the only professional actress in the film, the rest of the cast does a phenomenal job of capturing the hopelessness of the situation they are in.

Robe Of Gems shows Lopez’ Gallardo’s talent as a director on a technical level. However, the writing and editing is so wildly inconsistent I walked away with more questions than answers. Maybe, it deserves a second viewing to gain more context, but on the initial watch, I’m not sure if this is the type of film where a second chance is necessary or worth it.