TIFF25 REVIEW: Oca [20XX]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 109 minutes
Director(s): Karla Badillo
Writer(s): Karla Badillo

What did she dream?

All roads lead to San Vicente—the place where the new archbishop (Raúl Briones) has inexplicably decided to make his home. Sister Rafaela (Natalia Solián), known for her prophetic dreams (ones her superior simply calls coincidences), dreamt recently of a confession with a man wearing a rose ring. Hearing that this new arrival uses that same rose as his symbol, she’s sent on the arduous journey to ask his help to repair their crumbling convent. Rafaela doesn’t know the way, but she has faith God will get her where she needs to go.

Congregates from a nearby town don’t have that same certainty—not after the disappearance of their guide. They will still walk that same old road in hopes of reaching their destination, though, because they also need assistance. Unlike Rafaela, their actions force us to question their motives. First, the hypocrisy of two of their leaders damning young Rogelia’s (Cristel Guadalupe) mother while engaging in similar sins. Second, their treatment of the girl when all she wants to do is help. Third, their deception of the Sister herself.

Writer/director Karla Badillo’s biting morality tale Oca (named for a board game consisting of a path of pitfalls trying to wind your piece away from its final destination) isn’t satisfied with these two parallel pilgrimages. There’s also a paratrooper (Leonardo Ortizgris) on a personal mission that goes against his orders and an affluent woman (Cecilia Suárez’s Palmira) being chauffeured (by Gerardo Trejoluna’s Manuel) to meet someone at an airport. The question these characters face is whether they’ll allow desire to take a backseat to charity.

That’s the purpose of the road and why fate seems to have placed them all upon it simultaneously. Yes, the archbishop serves as a catalyst, but his position could be construed as destiny too—not his own, but that of the others. As Rafaela wonders about the wind changing the course of things through God’s guiding hand, Badillo ultimately becomes that deity within the world of her film. She allows the Sister’s motorcycle to break down and test the pilgrims. She conjures a storm to keep the paratrooper from deserting so he can eventually cross their path too.

Rafaela becomes a sort of lightning rod as a result. God’s pawn presenting everyone else with a choice: exploit a stranger to satisfy you own goal or sacrifice that mission to help another. Let’s just say a lot of F’s will be handed down as grades because they pretty much all see Rafaela as their salvation regardless of what they must do to her to receive it. I’m not talking implicitly either. They explicitly objectify, guilt, and trick her. They treat their eagerness for her to serve them as her purpose. But her true purpose is to serve only God.

So, when they attempt to divert her from her path, she pushes back. When they sabotage her pursuit for their own, she sits and prays for guidance. Sometimes it arrives in the form of another lie. Sometimes it provides her a way forward (Palmira worries if she’s a ‘good person’ only to prove she isn’t time and time again until finally agreeing to drive Rafaela to her destination). What matters, however, is that she never gives up. That she endures the struggle and continues her mission unlike the others so quick to quit when their vision of success fails.

Oca truly is a depiction of that game with Badillo rolling the dice to send each piece in multiple directions so they all become lost under their own karmic weight. We get confused too as landmarks become repeated from opposite directions to truly turn this road into a black hole refusing to release anyone until the moment is right. And, even then, what they find for their trouble won’t necessarily be what they imagined. Abandonment. Vanity. Fear. Death. As with everything else, though, it’s still exactly where they should be.

It’s a test of patience for Rafaela (Solián is great in the role, fiercely loyal to God and unafraid to subtly yet pointedly remind others when they betray themselves through their actions). Some audience members might say it’s a test of patience for them too. I personally enjoyed the circuitous nature of the film, though, since there’s narrative purpose to it. By putting everyone on an infinite loop of frustration, Badillo shows mankind’s penchant for malcontent and treachery. It positions Rafaela as divine.

That’s why I love the ending. Even those spinning their wheels should be satisfied by the turn of events transpiring upon Rafaela’s arrival. While it may seem out-of-character or a product of madness, one must consider the fine line separating insanity from piety where “communing with God” is concerned. Because asking the archbishop for help was never Rafaela’s purpose. That was merely what her Mother Superior demanded. Rafaela is guided only by God, and, as such, we must presume everything she does is His will. A game needs its victor.