Trail of Ashes (2020) is like a dream within a dream, a visual and auditory onslaught of unnerving beauty. This arthouse feature, directed and co-written by Arturo Lizardi, is an English-language Puerto Rican thriller that transported me to medieval times with a harrowing story centered around the loss of loved ones that is further made thrilling by introducing elements of ritual and mysticism — Lizardi cleverly bundled these aspects together to create a well-produced, if not somewhat narratively jumbled, feature.

In the film, girls are disappearing from around an empire, and the latest victim is the child of the empress. With his people at war with the empire, a man named Silas (Arturo Lizardi) is sent to capture, kill, and assume the identity of an investigator for the empire in order to lead the investigation himself and retrieve the child to gain leverage for his people in the war effort. While interviewing the prime suspect, an inquisitor (elite warrior) named Marco (Héctor Escudero), Silas realizes that this man is his long lost brother who he was tragically separated from as a child. As the investigation unlocks secrets of the past, Silas becomes conflicted between fulfilling his duty for his peoples’ cause and freeing his brother.

Sometimes the actors were better when they were not acting — their presence and the way they were styled looked the part, however, the performances did not meet the setting and unfortunately took me out of the time period and brought me back to reality. I also found myself rewinding quite a few times after scenes played out due to the relatively quick editing of the movie — it is good to linger sometimes, to make sure subtle nuances are understood and that pertinent dialogue is picked up on. There were quite a few intricate details worked into the film — the movie was done sans artificial lighting, had great costuming, and writing that was both engaging and that also seemed to subtly introduce commentary on the mistreatment of, calculated stripping of language and culture from, and the alarming statistics regarding missing women of Native Americans. Trail of Ashes, thankfully, was good enough to suffer the need to rewind to catch these details.

A hefty amount of the movie is told in flashbacks from the various characters, each one visually and emotionally gripping, recounting stories of heartbreaking loss, or, people haunted by the evil spirit, voiced very deeply, darkly, and effectively by Braulio Castillo. Though Trail of Ashes sometimes stumbles by having issues with comprehension, mostly due to the flashbacks within flashbacks, there is no denying the film’s visual beauty, artfully shot and expertly framed. What’s more, the sound design was great, picking up the minutest of sound details, and the musical score was jarring, introducing violins in scenes of heightened anxiety, using them like nails on a chalkboard.

For a lot of Trail of Ashes, I did not feel that I adequately understood all that was going on in the film, but towards the end, the pieces came together for this non-chronological and deeply layered story. Its medieval setting may play well for audiences into fantasies set in bygone time periods, such as Game of Thrones, however, despite the film’s magic and mysticism, this is not a fantasy-adventure movie, in my opinion. It is, however, a visually striking piece whose melodrama and bouts of action make it well worth the watch once it becomes available via VOD on December 1st.

6.5 out of 10