The Bridge Master’s Daughter

Hundreds of years ago, the Incas built many a woven footbridge for walking over gorges in the remote Andean highlands of Peru. In filmmakers Elisa Stone and Matthew Leahy’s sometimes-startling documentary The Bridge Master’s Daughter—a combination of anthropology and unnerving real-life drama—viewers learn that only one of those bridges remains. It needs to be rewoven every year while it hangs in place over a chasm, and that scary-looking task—passed between many generations—is the current responsibility of a middle-aged man named Victoriano Arisapana. Several people from Arisapana’s small, mountain community get involved: women make the fibrous strands that reinforce and rebuild the bridge, and men carefully thread them together into thick ropes. All of which is very interesting, but the film is more focused on Arisapana, his family, and various burdens that drive everyone apart and threaten tradition. This is a naturally beautiful setting in which people are literally living on miles and miles of green and jagged slopes, far from amenities and outsiders. Yet cell phones are ubiquitous, and there is a path that leads—temptingly for young people—to the closest city. Arisapana’s two sons have no intention of sticking around and assuming the mandate to fix the bridge annually. His teenage daughter, Ruth Laurita, isn’t allowed to inherit the sacred chore, and in any case she has a festering grievance that leads her to disappear. And there’s another relevant layer to the story concerning socially accepted violence towards girls and women, inflicted by husbands, fathers, and teachers. A beautifully-filmed and ultimately disturbing documentary, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)