“Tranamazonia” in the cinema-the Aspirin-Lady

The story of Juliane Koepcke, who survived a plane crash in the Peruvian rainforest on December 24, 1971 and dragged herself through the jungle for ten days until it was saved, fascinated many people. Werner Herzog, who tried in vain for places for the same accident flight at the time, understandably never let go of this incredible event. While Juliane fought her survival in the jungle, with Klaus Kinski he continued to record his adventure film “Aguirre, the wrath of God”. In 1998 he finally made the remarkable documentary “Wings of Hope”, which you can watch on YouTube. For this he returned to the crash location with the German-Peruvian biologist Koepcke.

The director Pia Marais, born in South Africa and lived in Berlin, also inspired this young woman, who survived almost unharmed from a height of three kilometers, to her film “Transamazonia”. However, she knits a completely different story from the incredible event: her Juliane is called Rebecca and is played by Helena Zengel, who caused a sensation in 2019 with her portrayal of a traumatized girl who falls through all raster of child and youth welfare. After the international success, she played with Tom Hanks in the American Western “News from the World” and can currently also be seen in the fantasy film “The Legend of Ochi”.

In »Transamazonia«, a native of the fictional strain of the Iruaté saves the girl covered with mud and blood and carries the six -year -old through the Brazilian jungle for days. Later, the disturbed Rebecca from the hospital is picked up by her father Lawrence (Jeremy Xido), a Christian-evangelical missionary.

Nine years later, Lawrence Rebecca – now embodied by Zengel – markets his community as a miracle healer. The faithful whipped up during the services call them “Aspirin-Lady”, stoically and silent, the blonde angel tries to make wonders, actually even moves a woman in a wheelchair to simply stand up. In such moments, she looks like the traumatized, young woman from the horror classic “Carrie – the Satan’s youngest daughter”. But she does not develop devilish-teleconent skills until the end. On the contrary, Marais deliberately leaves open whether Rebecca has an extraordinary talent, and she too does not seem to be quite sure.

Atmospherically, the film knows how to convince, Mathieu de Montgrand’s hypnotic camera work pulls the viewer deep into the Brazilian jungle, the exaggerated threatening score catapults a cinema sitting back and foremost.

Unfortunately, the script by Marais, Willem Droste and Martin Rosefeldt cannot keep up with the pictures. The further the film progresses, the more you wonder which story should actually be told. That of female self -discovery in unusual circumstances? A difficult daughter-father relationship that is also based on an outrageous lie? Should it be about unfortunate missionary work that penetrates even the most remote areas or about environmental destructive capitalism? Marais increasingly gets lost in the jungle of her claims.

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In the vicinity of her mission station, ruthless workers pick up the rainforest and thus put the livelihood in danger. Rebecca sits on the side of her indigenous teenagers, which she once provoked with the question of whether she would always do what her father says. However, he asks his Wunderkind Rebecca to heal the wife of the wooden firmabe owner who fell into a kind of coma. Her husband promises that he would remove his wood workers from the area if she succeeds. Rebecca seems to be stuck between all fronts, while the conflict of the indigenous people escalates with the wooden fellers. But that’s not enough, she is also jealous of a nurse who briefly lives with you. In addition, these doubts are sowing to Rebecca’s true origin.

At the last minute, Marais still tries half -heartedly to bring all of these threads together, but she does not succeed and it is not so special, since until then neither the interior of Rebecca nor that of her father or that of the indigenous people was particularly illuminated. On the other hand, Helene Zengel, which strikes Wacker through the plot jungle.

Even if you guess that Marais wanted to critically question the “White Savior” complex-particularly clearly in a scene in which the lumberjack boss Lawrence explains that it was about the wood and the money of the indigenous people, but Lawrence obviously has her souls-the undecided melodram also fails because of this claim. The attempt at a critical examination of this topic is lost in narrative uncertainty.

“Tranamazonia”: Germany, Brazil, France, Switzerland, Taiwan, 2024. Director: Pia Marais. Book: Pia Marais, Willem Droste, Martin Rosefeldt. With: Helena Zengel, Jeremy Xido, Sérgio Sartorio. 115 min. Cinema release: May 15th.