“You will be a little god. Gliding along the roads, you will pierce the night and many other places that don’t even deserve a name.” Welcome to the meditative world of Truck Driver, a portrait of the isolated lives of truck drivers in Argentina.
Over a faltering connection, a woman briefly speaks to her son. A man sits beside the highway listening to a crackling radio. Contact with the outside world is scarce in this hypnotic film, which hovers between fiction and nonfiction. The drivers sometimes record messages for their families, but far more often their cabs feel like quiet islands parked outside our reality. Melancholic music, including excerpts from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, draws the viewer deeper into an unbroken trance.
With no further explanation, each scene offers a glimpse into lives we would normally drive past without a second thought. A driver searching for his wife, hidden places to pray, a couple fantasizing about having a baby: it makes you feel as if for a moment you are there with them.
Stills
