Two young girls are looking for Pokémons in the sun-drenched landscapes, while two elderly gentlemen are playing the guitar and singing heroic hymns to the local lorry drivers. We are in the vast inland of Spain, and the stories reflect each other in Juan Palacios's slightly surreal field trip through the ancient kingdom. But the magical moments come from the eccentric local folklore, which is rooted in dry lands. The method reflects the motif, and freely alternates between poetic observation and artistic intervention. Palacios sees his film as a living map. But the territory is boundless, as is the state that Palacios's film puts you in. 'Inland' was shot over a period of four years, and he has let his film's episodic nature be shaped by the characters and locations he has encountered along the way. An older photographer contributes to the fresco with images that make peasants look like passers-by in 'Don Quixote', and when a car drives off into the twilight, the headlights make a whole shrub move around in a black silhouette under the wide and deep blue sky, where a single star is shining.
