By Yun-hua Chen.
I began to feel that this revolution is still happening. The possibility of revolution, or the reasons why revolutions begin, are still present. And if that’s the case, then time is not as we try to understand it in Western society.”
—Daniel Vidal Toche
Walking from the 18th century, during the revolution led by Túpac Amaru II, into the 21st century—where mountaintops are now crowned with electricity towers and the local community protests against a mine polluting their river—the defeated revolutionary Ángel Pumacahua arrives at his village in the Peruvian Andes, in the Andean region of Puno.
His journey is long and arduous: he passes a hanging limb left from a quartering, climbs rocky paths, and traverses barren, unpopulated lands. Arriving in an era not his own, he encounters Eustaquia, who is searching for her twin sister, missing after opposing a mining company. As the paths of revolutionaries from two eras intersect, it becomes a collision of time and a voyage through it—set in motion by the crash of a nearby meteorite.
Under Angello Faccini’s lens, the Peruvian Andes appear vast and unforgiving—stunning yet terrifying. The human figures, dwarfed by the landscape, shine with a quiet dignity. In dreams and in waking life, fragments of revolutions and broken ideals intertwine, with pieces of past and present scattering and merging. Though “revolution” carries different meanings and causes across eras, the question remains for those who seek change: what are we fighting for? And how can change be made?
Director Daniel Vidal Toche—who co-wrote the script with Ignacio Vuelta and co-edited with Carlos Canãs Carreira—approaches history, cinematic time, and the consequences of our actions with a distinct poetic sensibility. In the film’s most beautiful final sequence, he shoots from the back of athe Andean Explorer luxury train and reverses the footage, showing market vendors and townspeople moving backwards. The train moves in reverse, as vendors pack and unpack along the tracks, and cars roll backwards. This surreal yet hyperreal moment, in addition to being a poignant social commentary, is both lyrical and metaphorical: though we believe time moves forward, we may in fact be sleepwalking backwards—trapped in a time-space continuum of which we remain completely unaware.
With The Anatomy of the Horses premiering in the Proxima Competition at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Film International speaks with Daniel Vidal Toche about his cinematic vision of time and space.
Why did you want to tell a story about revolution in the time-space continuum?
Well, that came from reality. I spent a lot of time in Puno, about 15 years ago, for another project. At the time, I couldn’t finish that project. I began speaking with people in small villages everywhere, and they told me about the Tupac Amaru revolution, speaking of it as though it had happened yesterday. So I started thinking: if people talk about an 18th-century revolution as if it happened yesterday, it’s because there’s something about it—something still alive in the story of my country, especially in these places that are, in many ways, forgotten.
So I began to feel that this revolution is still happening. The possibility of revolution, or the reasons why revolutions begin, are still present. And if that’s the case, then time is not as we try to understand it in Western society.
I’m from Lima, and therefore from a Westernized society, because there’s a big disconnect between how one grows up in the capital—in a kind of Creole society—and what happens in the Andes. That, I think, was the seed of the film. Then I started traveling through many villages, because at the end of the Tupac Amaru revolution, one of the consequences was that Tupac Amaru’s body was dismembered into pieces and each piece was sent to a particular village in the Cusco and Puno regions.
I began to visit all these small villages where the body parts were sent. I spoke with the people there, and everyone knew about it. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone engaged in a political conversation with me about it. It was amazing, because on the coast, the narrative is entirely different: there’s often no opinion, no political consciousness, no background, no foundation for meaningful discussion. That, of course, is a complete lie—I knew it even then—but when you compare that with the rich political conversations happening in small towns nearly 3,900 metres above sea level, it sparks something in you as a director.
What kind of research did you do? How did you work with the culture, the location and the language Quechua?
I spent a lot of time there and built a really close relationship with my protagonists. They became part of the creative process. They are Quechua speakers, and we developed a very methodical working process. I wrote the dialogues in Spanish, then we translated them into Quechua, and then translated them back into Spanish. This was important because the structure of Quechua is completely different from any Western language I know. In Quechua, a noun can also be the verb, or the subject can be in an interchangeable position with the predicate. It’s very poetic—it’s a language you have to imagine from its foundations. It’s a language of imagination.
I needed that imaginative quality from Quechua to be present even in the Spanish version, which is why we worked in that way. So the entire process—research, collaboration with the community—was a two-way interaction. I gave something, I received something, and I transformed my film based on that relationship.
A lot of poetry also comes from the language itself—the sound of it, and the songs they break into. I was wondering: how did you gather those texts? Were they existing texts, or did you invent them?
That’s exactly how it happened. The nature of the language is poetic—it’s a language of imagination.
I wrote the initial text, and then, with Edith and Juan—my two actors and friends—we translated it from Spanish to Quechua, and then back to Spanish, and finally to English. It was a very long process. I truly hope to screen the movie in Puno, for a Quechua-speaking audience, because I know they will grasp something I cannot reach myself—even in my own film. Some meaning is inevitably lost in translation, but I tried to preserve the poetic essence in the Quechua version. It’s not my poetry; I didn’t write it in Spanish and then try to make it poetic in Quechua. The poetry arises from the language itself—its nature.
The final scene is really beautiful—along the train track, people moving backwards. How did you create that?
We placed the camera on a train. There’s a tragic story behind that train, actually. I want to do something more about it, but it wasn’t possible in this film. It’s a very political issue, and we didn’t get the chance to explore it fully in the movie. That train is exclusive—only for tourists. Local people are not allowed to use it. It doesn’t stop in any village. If you’re wealthy, you can board it in Cusco for, I don’t know, 2,000 euros or 1,050 euros—it’s very expensive—and travel all the way to Puno.
Part of its route crosses through the market of Juliaca, which is a huge market—really massive. It’s like the beating heart of savage capitalism in Peru, a place where the state simply doesn’t exist. And when the state doesn’t exist, there are no boundaries for money. And when there are no boundaries for money, things become harsh. I mounted a camera on this exclusive, rather horrible train and filmed the route through Juliaca’s market. I placed my actors at certain points along the way and filmed them.
From the beginning, I intended it to feel like we’re moving forward and backward at the same time, because the film speaks to that paradox. The words are important, yes, but in cinema, images carry even more weight. They create a connection between languages. I think the final shot is a huge question mark. The entire film poses questions, but the final image might be the biggest one.
So you shot from the back of the train and reversed the footage?
Yes, exactly.
In Quechua language and culture too, dreams hold deep meaning. I tried to construct something that existed outside of time—a dream logic that could travel across eras, carrying a message or an enigma.”
And at the same time, people were doing business right on the train tracks?
Yes, that’s what happens every day. They lay out their goods directly on the tracks, and when the train passes, they move everything aside—then set it all back again afterwards. It doesn’t happen daily, more like three times a week. Every time, it’s the same routine. The train passes with tourists, and tourists witness this spectacle. It’s tough. It’s disturbing. I want to explore the other side of this train—the side I didn’t show in this movie. When I saw the train crossing that place, I thought: this is an image that speaks of going forward and backward at the same time. And that, I think, reflects our world today.
You have the train—and a lot of train tracks—and at the same time, you have horses, both of which are important symbols of the industrial revolution.
Yes, and also of conquest—of colonization. The horse is a beautiful, noble animal, and I believe there’s a deep, natural connection between humans and horses. Nobody can deny that. But horses didn’t exist in the Americas before colonization. They are the animal of conquest. For Moctezuma, the relationship with horses was crucial—it was the door through which Cortés entered the inner circle of Moctezuma, marking the beginning of the end.
In Peru as well, horses were pivotal during the conquest. They were instruments of a larger machinery—a colonial machinery. And they were also used in Tupac Amaru’s execution. I don’t know the exact English word, but he was dismembered—quartered. His limbs were tied to horses pulling in different directions.
There’s something about the strength of horses and the fragility of humans that is deeply symbolic. In the film, the horse must be freed. Horses are very important in the story because, without them, the conquest—and the development of the country—would have taken a very different course. There’s also a link to the title of the film, which comes from an English painter, George Stubbs, who created a study titled The Anatomy of the Horse. Not horses—the horse. He suspended a horse from the ceiling and meticulously illustrated each anatomical layer: skin, muscles, bones, cartilage—everything. He tried to depict the complete reality of the horse.
That pursuit—of understanding everything in precise, exact terms—is part of Western thinking, and it is also impossible; there is always something that cannot be captured. I wanted the film to resonate with the idea that there is always something that escapes us, that can’t be fully known or contained.
And what escapes is the subconscious, which is also the form of the film. You drift into dreams, into the subconscious—and into death.
Yes. I think none of us really knows anything about death—only grief. But we do know about dreams. We all dream. And we all ask questions about our dreams. For me, dreams and death are similar in some way. I don’t think cinema is for portraying reality. I believe cinema is for questioning reality—not for mimesis, but to challenge it.
That’s why dreams are so important to me. And it’s not just me. In Quechua language and culture too, dreams hold deep meaning. I tried to construct something that existed outside of time—a dream logic that could travel across eras, carrying a message or an enigma. The protagonists must engage with this enigma, try to understand it. And I presented it that way because I believe the audience should do the same—try to decipher it. I, too, am trying to decipher it.
For me, that’s the most interesting kind of filmmaking. I love all kinds of cinema, but for my own films, I prefer to explore things in that way.
It’s also time-travel—from the 18th century to the 20th century. What have people managed to do—and not do—across those 200 years?
One of the things the film suggests is that everything is starting over again. There’s a spiral-like movement. The beginning is the end. This has to do not just with culture, but also with the realities of systemic oppression and the need for liberation.
The connection across eras feels natural to me because the past is still happening. The structures that define our world today were already present in the 18th century. Perhaps there was more hope at that time—the French Revolution was taking place—but the foundational boundaries were the same ones we still live with today. So yes, the past continues. And I’m not the only one who believes this. Walter Benjamin, a marvelous philosopher, introduced that idea just before World War II. He suggested we must relate to the past not as a historical timeline—this happened, then that happened—but rather as something more alive. That linear way of thinking can be lazy. Reality is more complex than what traditional history suggests. This perspective is also embedded in Quechua culture.
So the film creates a coexistence of time periods—not a past and a present, but multiple times colliding. You can see reflections of the past in the present, and vice versa. Time is not linear; it’s more circular. This is both a political and philosophical point—and something cinema can uniquely express. Cinema is juxtaposition. That’s its essence. You can make things coexist in a single frame. That’s the plasticity, the power of the cinematic language.
This time collision reminds me of Gilles Deleuze’s crystal-image…
I spent a lot of time with Deleuze during my university years. I didn’t explicitly link his philosophy to the creation of this script, but he’s definitely part of my background—my philosophical background. He’s one of my “invisible friends.” When I write, I try to speak with my invisible friends, and Deleuze is certainly one of them.
My last question is about revolution—or no revolution—because the question is existential. What does revolution bring? And ultimately, what is revolution about?
I don’t think the film answers that question—because it’s very difficult. There’s a moment in the film when the protagonist mentions a kind of Schrödinger’s cat. That’s what it is—it’s not about the result. It’s about the right to ask: “Why are you telling me I can’t access that? Who the hell are you to say that to me?”
That kind of rage I feel when I confront exclusivity—power used to suppress others—that same spirit, I found it in this place. I think the film presents the question. You can interpret it however you like. You might identify more with Eustaquia, who says, “What’s the point? Everything ends in death.” And Ángel replies, “Maybe. But who are they to say we can’t cross that door?”
So yes, it’s hard to draw conclusions. But I don’t believe films are meant to provide answers. I think they are meant to pose questions. And this film, I believe, is a big question.
Yun-hua Chen is an independent film scholar and critic and associate editor of Film International Online. Currently, she serves on the board of the German Film Critics Association.