MOVIE REVIEW : Mysticism and Wonder Prevail in ‘Cabeza’

Nicolas Echeverria’s “Cabeza de Vaca” (at the Goldwyn Pavilion) is a bold, stunning feat of the imagination that transports us to another world. It is “Dances With Wolves” told without a trace of sentimentality or contrivance--and with a wondrous mysticism.

If Echeverria is a more ambitious and uncompromising filmmaker than Kevin Costner, he is also more demanding. “Cabeza de Vaca” is frankly more often grueling than entertaining in the usual sense of the word, yet casts a potent spell if you’re willing to submit to it. It is the kind of film that’s well worth the effort, yielding fresh meanings with each viewing.

Inspired by the writings of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, treasurer of an ill-fated Spanish voyage of exploration, it begins in 1528 as Cabeza de Vaca (Juan Diego) becomes one of a handful of survivors shipwrecked off the coast of Florida. Enslaved by the enigmatic shaman (Roberto Cobo) of a local tribe of American Indians, he is expected to care for the shaman’s sidekick, a short, tubby man (Jose Flores, a gifted natural actor) with no arms, foreshortened legs and a crazed sense of humor.

Echeverria allows us to experience Cabeza de Vaca’s nightmarish sense of dislocation; we sense, as does he, that he could lose his life in a moment of caprice on the part of his captors. Time, however, seems to be on his side, as he gradually adjusts to the routines and rhythms of his new, and to him, bizarre and barbaric way of life.

What Cabeza de Vaca at this point cannot fully comprehend is that, instead of being held for some unknown dire fate, he is being indoctrinated into the tribe. One day the shaman draws in the sand the picture of a young Indian and then takes his spear and pokes out one of the Indian’s eyes; at that very moment the Indian depicted by the shaman mysteriously experiences the spearing of one of his eyes.

Cabeza de Vaca discovers, to his complete and understandable astonishment, that this terrifying, seemingly supernatural act is a demonstration of the power of the shaman, who then restores the Indian’s sight. Cabeza de Vaca, in participating in this ritual, then develops seemingly magical healing powers of his own.

Echeverria evokes that same sense of loss of supernatural powers on the part of Europeans that Peter Weir does in his landmark “Last Wave,” which depicts a group of aboriginals remaining so close to nature that the line between what is considered natural and the supernatural comes to seem artificial.

Backed by a formidable cameraman in Guillermo Navarro, Echeverria is a gloriously visual storyteller with a grand, authoritative style that sustains easily a series of impassioned and theatrical soliloquies on the part of Diego, a thin, intense actor with a strong Gilbert Roland profile. The entire film unfolds against limitless vistas of unspoiled nature.

In the course of eight years as an itinerant healer, Cabeza de Vaca became the first European to walk across America to the Pacific coast of Mexico. When he at last comes into contact once again with a Spanish expedition “Cabeza de Vaca” (rated R for bloodshed and nudity) proceeds swiftly to its stark climax with the inevitability of classic tragedy.

‘Cabeza de Vaca’

Juan Diego: Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca

Roberto Cobo: The Shaman

Roberto Sosa: Cascabel/Araino

Jose Flores: Malacosa

A Concorde Pictures release of a Producciones Iguana. Director Nicolas Echeverria. Producers Rafael Cruz, Jorge Sanchez, Julio Solorzano Foppa, Bertha Navarro. Executive producer Navarro. Screenplay by Guillermo Sheridan, Echeverria; inspired by the book “Naufragios” by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. Cinematographer Guillermo Navarro. Editor Rafael Castanado. Costumes/set design Tolita Figueroa. Music Mario Lavista. Art director Jose Luis Aguilar. In Spanish and American Indian dialects, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (for bloodshed and nudity).