Director Ulises Porra’s solo debut feature, Under the Same Sun (Bajo el mismo sol), is the kind of movie that hooks you from the get-go, mostly because you’ve never seen quite this story before. But originality isn’t the only thing Under the Same Sun has in its favor, as the movie weaves together a compelling study of relationships that exist within different power dynamics, and what choices people make in good times and bad times.
The Dominican–Spanish co-production is set on the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola in 1819, just before the independence of the Dominican Republic. The setting, which hasn’t really been explored too much in entertainment outside of Isabel Allende’s La isla bajo el mar, not her most well-known work but one of her best, is rich with contradictions and stories to tell.
MORE: Excited for Guillermo del Toro’s new movie? Read our Frankenstein review!
In that context, the movie follows a Spanish merchant, Lázaro (David Castillo), a master silk maker from China, Mei (Valentina Shen Wu), and a Haitian army deserter, Baptiste (Jean Jean), an unlikely trio looking to establish a silk factory in the heart of the island. But they’ll have to face the wilderness, violent French colonists, and the complications that come with a partnership of different people who, deep down, have a hard time understanding each other.
A character study mixed with a meditation on the human desire for freedom and dignity, Under the Same Sun is less about the time period that instantly grabs you, and more about what the circumstances of the time made of people. But perhaps the best part of the movie is that it isn’t interested in letting people off the hook. Instead, Under the Same Sun forces you to think and engage with the things that were and how little has changed, in so many ways.
MORE: Hamnet won TIFF’s People’s Choice Award, and we think it deserved it. Our review!
Jean Jean’s Baptise is, perhaps, the most engaging part of a story that moves from intimacy, mistrust, jealousy, and betrayal to real camaraderie very easily. But Valentina Shen Wu, in her debut, is also very engaging as Mei, and though perhaps the weakest link by virtue of the story he gets to play out, David Castillo is also everything he needs to be as Lázaro, for better or worse.
Visually striking, the movie transports us to the colonial Caribbean, a place we would not have wanted to inhabit. It does so with certainty, skill, and a story that sometimes goes exactly the way you expect it to, but that never bores you while taking the road the world demands. This might not be a wholly surprising tale, but it is nonetheless a worthwhile one.
Under the Same Sun streamed at the Toronto International Film Festival.
