Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

ronchow My first exposure to Medem's films was through 'Lovers of the Artic Circle'. Right away I grew fond of his style of directing - meditative, philosophical at times, poetic, personal and often abstract. 'Tierra' was one of his earlier films, dated 1996. However, time has not eroded the film's merit.The protagonist, called Angel, had just come out of a mental institution and was struggling to get back to a normal life of work and love. In love he was linked up to two women, played by Emma Suarez and a young Silke. Both very attractive to look at and contributed to a few very erotic moments in the film.'Tierra' told the story of Angle's mental struggle, and the struggle of others around him. There is really no message in the film despite the many quotes relating to atoms, stars and the universe. What we are left with is a story of human interaction and struggle, and love. This is one very usual human drama and well told by Medem.

Tim Kidner I watched this as part of the six DVD Spanish release Julio Medem 'Collection', easily the most cost effective way of getting his first six films.Quite weirdly wonderful, this sums up all that is good - and bad - about World cinema. Forever inventive and beguiling, one just doesn't know where either the narrative or camera will take us next. But that weirdness and fantasy can leave one confused and wishing for a more concise reality.Medem's immense imagination - who else could summon a screenplay on the back of a just a grub-exterminator just released from an insane asylum? but also make it work. I've never come across any director quite as unique as Julio Medem.I do like and enjoyed this film but in my opinion, it isn't quite up there with his best, which is The Red Squirrel, followed by Sex & Lucia, then Lovers Of the Arctic Circle.

Howard Schumann Angel (Carmelo Gomez) is a fumigator who visits a wine growing area in order to kill the woodlice that infest the soil and give the wine a distinctively wooden flavor. Tierra, Julio Medem's first film after The Red Squirrel, is a tour de force about a man seeking a balance between his inner world and outer reality. Tierra begins with a trip through space from the outer galaxies descending to Earth in an agricultural area. Beautifully photographed by Javier Aguirresarobe, the bare landscape with its orange and brown colors, gives the land a look of strangeness. Angel has a running dialogue with his other self (his angel). He had been treated in a mental hospital for multiple personality disorder but it is not clear whether he is a spirit guide, an alien visitor, or a paranoid schizophrenic.Angel claims that he has been sent down to Earth for a divine mission, and that he is half-man and half-angel, half-alive and half-dead. Angel hires local gypsies to help him fumigate the land, a project eagerly approved by the town, and they walk through the land covered in white protective suits that look like they were borrowed from the wardrobe of the movie ET. The half of Angel that is alive is torn between the sweet wholesome blond Angela (Emma Suarez) and the over-sexed eighteen-year old redhead Mari (Silke Hornillos Klein). Both are attached to a mean-spirited local farmer named Patricio (Karra Elejalde), one as his neglected wife, the other as his mistress. Angel claims that he is in love with Angela but is slowly seduced by the playfully aggressive Mari. The selection of a lover takes on profound philosophical underpinnings as it becomes a struggle for his soul, reflecting his own split personality, real or imagined. Along the way he has to deal with death by lightning, suicide, wild boar hunts, and a jealous husband. Replete with awkward ruminations about duality, death, and the nature of life, however, the film unfortunately loses its narrative focus and becomes tedious and muddled. Without the metaphysics, Tierra could have been an intriguing look at the nature of human desire and the way we make choices about relationships. While the film contains fine performances and an intriguing sense of magic realism, I found Tierra to be an ultimately unsatisfying experience.

Tomas Polakovic It is a beautiful movie (as most of Medem's movies are), visually absolutely stunning, with very good actors and a very human(istic) plot. It sometimes gets complicated, sometimes it does not make too much sense, but at the end it does not really matter. Probably the best way to enjoy this film is to let the images guide you into their dizzying magical world and you will then feel deep inside what it is all about.