THE FORTUNATE ISLES (TIFF 2026) – Review by Leslie Combemale
For a minute there, I thought I was seeing outtakes from the long lost 70s Werner Herzog arid and parched accompaniment to Aguirre, the Wrath of God. The Fortunate Isles has the same hopeless colonialist tale seemingly told through the lens of 70s naturalism, only this time it’s told from the perspective of an enslaved pregnant woman, trapped on the recently conquered 16th century Canary Island with the least amount of water. Longtime filmmaking partners Samuel M. Delgado and Helena Girón write and direct the story of the face-branded and trapped Fátima (Luisa Ahl Laabiad, in her screen debut), who lives on a small island waiting day and night on The Marquis (Lou Castel, who came out of retirement for this performance). When it becomes clear she and her village might die of thirst, she chooses drastic measures to protect her child, and save her community.
“Say it in French” says the now blind The Marquis to his servant Fátima, making it clear her own language and desires are meaningless. This desolate, unrelenting feature about colonialism, self preservation, sacrifice, and the unforgiving whims of nature slowly gets under your skin and stays there. Fátima has to choose how or if she will find a way to birth the baby The Marquis has repeatedly told her has no use to him. It’s a human tragedy embodied in one woman who has little to no power over her own life. It goes from bad to worse, as you might imagine, not least when she chooses to go to the neighboring island and ask The Marquis’s son for water, only to be refused and placed in shackles as one of his many enslaved workers.
What works here is Ahl Laabiad’s performance, with dogged determination, release into hopelessness, and seething fury seeming to war inside her for purchase moment to moment. It’s also clear the filmmakers know their landscape, which makes sense, since Delgado’s ancestral home overlooks the island on which this movie was made. As I mentioned, there’s a decidedly naturalistic aesthetic, which evokes some of the bleaker films of that era that attempted examination of the very worst aspects of colonialism. Man’s attempt to conquer nature, along with the indigenous peoples living there, has often been a recipe for disaster, with the enslaved ultimately losing the most. An added element of demonstrating the experiences of enslaved women makes The Fortunate Isles all the more painful yet poignant to watch.
4 out of 5 stars.
