Caravan premiered at this years’ Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Zuzana Kirchnerová-Špidlová in her feature directorial debut, the film stars Jana Plodková, Giandomenico Cupaiulo, Anna Geislerová, and David Vostrčil. Overwhelmed by motherhood, Ester steals a caravan and flees to southern Italy with her son David with an intellectual disability. They meet a young drifter whose open heart transforms their makeshift family into something freer, lighter, and full of unexpected hope.

Based on what I am seeing, this seems to be having the most hype out of the screenings I have seen so far, and I can understand why. It’s portrayals between the story and performances are outstanding and realistic. While it can be repetitive at times, the themes are made clear. For a directorial debut, it’s impressive how organic & cinematic the film looks. Not only can I see the filmmaker getting more work after this, I can easily see Jana Plodková & David Vostrčil getting some award recognition.

Ever since seeing Perfect Days, I have had a desire to explore more films grounded in realism. There’s a lot that we can learn through the daily activities of one’s life. I also happen to get a lot more value thematically from watching films like this. Traveling with her son, Jana Plodková’s performance as the mother says so much through her actions and emotions more than her dialogue is. The things she says out loud is to protect her son, but this has resulting in wanting more affectionate attention from men that she no longer gets. This can be a bit repetitive as the men in the film all seem to be quite creepy. For her, though, she doesn’t mind, because she’s finally getting the attention she wants.

David Vostrčil who plays as her son manages to evoke the emotions that is needed out of him. Under Zuzana Kirchnerová-Špidlová’s direction, they are able to bring out the right performances from the cast. Vostrčil, much like Plodková, says so much through his action. His own mother, while frustrated with him at times, still understands his emotions best. What happened to his mother has emotionally broken her, it’s the love of her son that keeps her going, no matter what happens.

The film’s pacing is a slow burn. For the most part, I found myself there with these characters in real time, even if the pacing lacked at times. The film may require a lot of patience, but there is a lot of beauty to behold that I believe will resonate with its viewers. No matter how flawed or complex we may be as humans, we still do it for the love that we have the others. The film also does a great job at conveying how it’s okay to be selfish at times.

The cinematography and sound design both as effective technical characters for this story. The camera knows how to stay on characters long enough, especially in its close-ups, to help better immerse you into each scene. That also speaks of the sound design. Sound design is an underrated component filmmaking that often goes overlooked. When you can hear every sound of a location, it also immerses you better into each scene. This doesn’t quite translate well in the conclusion where the conflict is easily resolved, but the themes are still quite clear in the end.

Overall, I found Caravan to be quite effective with telling the story it needed to tell. While certain plot points can be repetitive, the point is still made quite clear. With standout performances from Jana Plodková & David Vostrčil & solid direction from Zuzana Kirchnerová-Špidlová, this film is a winner.

VERDICT: 3.5/5 (Pretty Good)