From NYFF: ‘Tragic Jungle’ is Tragically Forgettable

In “Tragic Jungle,” Mexican filmmaker Ylene Olaizola (credited as writer, producer, editor, and director) revives the Mayan myth of Xtabay — a female demon in the Yucatán Peninsula who lured men deep into the rainforest before killing them. Olaizola’s film is supposed to be an otherworldly experience — a fever dream fraught with woozy visions of unexplained horrors and carnal desires. But “Tragic Jungle” is neither evocative nor frightening; in fact, it’s rather bland.

The year is 1920. Agnes (Indira Rubie Andrewin) flees from a wedding with a wealthy British landowner by escaping into the rainforest bordering Mexico and British Honduras. When her aggrieved ex-fiancé pursues her into the wilderness with a small cohort of armed men, she fakes her death, and eventually stumbles into a company of local gum tree workers. As her presence seems to attract increasingly mystical occurrences, the workers quickly descend into a flurry of helpless confusion.

While it explores an interesting premise, “Tragic Jungle” is debilitated by a scattershot narrative. For a film that’s supposed to be shrouded in myth, the visual allusions to the supernatural are rare and far from explicit. It’s never quite clear what direction Olaizola wants to take, and that leaves audiences confused over what they should expect from the film.

Olaizola withholds answers, perhaps in an effort to ratchet up mystery and tension, but “Tragic Jungle” is so insular that it becomes difficult for viewers to get involved. This confusion is evident with the film’s narrative inconsistencies. After getting shot, Agnes appears to limp in one scene, but not the next. At one point, we’re led to believe that she died from her wounds, but she soon awakens fully alert and unscathed. Sometimes, gum tree workers see her having sex with one of their compatriots, but when that individual is found dead in the same spot the next morning, none of them question the nature of the tragedy or her innocence. These inconsistencies are maddening because it’s never clear if these visions are real or imagined, and it’s impossible to get invested in a narrative when it’s never exactly clear what that narrative is supposed to be.

“Tragic Jungle” also rarely explains the myth it’s meant to portray. Most audiences are likely unfamiliar with the folklore behind Xtabay, and in a film where the only hints to the source material are forgettable, disconnected voiceovers, it’s difficult for viewers to understand what the film is about without Googling it.

Perhaps Olaizola didn’t focus on conveying a clear, linear narrative in “Tragic Jungle,” because she prioritized building a lurid environment steeped in mysticism. Agnes is mute after the opening scenes, and dialogue is a scarce commodity. The strange events that unfold largely go unexplained, and the film progresses cyclically, locked in a confused stupor.

This puts a brunt of the storytelling on the film’s visual language, and thankfully, the cinematography is captivating enough to pick up some of “Tragic Jungle”'s narrative slack. Director of Photography Sofía Oggioni explained in an interview that she rarely used fill lights when shooting to create a jungle that looked cold and dark, an image far removed from the radiant warmth often associated with the tropics. The film is also tinted with a misty haze which not only adds an aura of mystique, but also an element of repetition. It becomes increasingly difficult for audiences to recognize their surroundings in the forest as they too become lost in a sea of pale desaturated browns and greens. Unfortunately, cinematography can only go so far in telling a story and haunting, beautiful images can’t dilute a cluttered plot.

Next to the stunning array of films on display in the New York Film Festival’s Main Slate, “Tragic Jungle” is a sad afterthought. Perhaps that's indicative of the caliber of films Olaizola’s latest is up against, or perhaps it can be attributed to this reviewer’s lack of prior cultural knowledge. But it wouldn’t be surprising if “Tragic Jungle” found itself in the growing wastebasket of promising but ultimately forgettable films the second it finishes its festival run.

—Staff writer Lanz Aaron G. Tan can be reached at lanzaaron.tan@thecrimson.com and on twitter @LanzAaronGTan1.