A faith healer in the Dominican Republic falls foul of the US in this arresting, ambiguous drama
![Liborio review – brooding portrait of a beguilingly charismatic folk hero](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4fed1f252ada0ed760a497de41f33507e2fb2036/57_26_1023_614/master/1023.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctcmV2aWV3LTMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=61823564d0642fbde2ed5b2831026339)
Here’s a striking and mysterious debut from the Dominican Republic, where film-maker Nino Martínez Sosa recounts a fascinating true-life story of occupation and resistance from the turn of the last century. Olivorio Mateo was a peasant and faith healer who became known to his disciples as Papa Liborio; he built a self-sufficient community in the mountains. But when US forces occupied in the 1910s, Liborio was branded a bandit, and killed.
Not that you’d know any of the historical facts from watching this, which is set squarely in the arthouse endurance-test genre: there is little to no scene-setting or explainers, with the kind of pacing often euphemistically described by critics as “deliberate”. It begins after Liborio vanishes from his village during a
Hurricane, presumed dead. When he is found alive, he claims to have returned from God with healing powers and takes a band of followers up into the mountains.