Space to Breathe, Room to Change

Read Time:5 Minute, 30 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Caravan (Karavan)
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Genre: Drama
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 36m
Director(s): Zuzana Kirchnerova
Writer(s): Tomás Bojar, Zuzana Kirchnerová, Kristina Majova
Cast: Aňa Geislerová, Juliana Oľhová, David Vodstrčil, Jana Plodková, Mario Russo, Giandomenico Cupaiuolo
Where to Watch: shown at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: Sometimes the most revealing journeys happen quietly, through subtle gestures and emotions that don’t announce themselves. That’s the guiding force behind CARAVAN, a character drama wrapped in the skin of a road movie but far more focused on the internal miles than the ones on the odometer. It doesn’t aim to redefine a genre or shake up convention—it simply wants to make space for a truth often overlooked: the emotional labor of caretaking and the ache that comes from never being asked what you need.

Ester’s situation is immediately understood by the cycles of her life. She’s spent years bound to her son David, whose disabilities shape nearly every part of their daily routine. The film doesn’t linger on diagnoses or medical terms. Instead, it shows us what it feels like to live in a space where responsibility is constant and selfhood becomes a luxury. Something quietly snaps when Ester’s long-anticipated trip falls apart and she’s forced to bring David along, not in anger or rebellion, but in resolve.

What could’ve been framed as a dramatic escape plays more like an exhausted exhale. The movie’s strength is in how it reframes expectations. Instead of leaning on crisis or confrontation, it builds tension through stillness. Being crammed in a camper with an emotionally complex teenager and no destination isn’t a recipe for excitement. But it does create space for silence, for breath, for the kind of reflection that only happens when the usual pressures are paused.

This narrative approach asks for patience from its audience. It’s not concerned with ticking off specific moments or delivering obvious payoffs. That works in its favor. Too often, films that address caregiving fall into overly sentimental traps or force growth through trauma. Here, change is glacial and nonlinear. Ester’s journey is less about self-discovery than remembering who she was.

Aňa Geislerová plays that weight with precision. Her performance doesn’t demand your attention—it earns it through restraint. Her movements are small, her voice rarely rises, but everything she does feels loaded with years of compromise. You see her calculating every interaction, every choice, as though her freedom must always be balanced against David’s needs. What she delivers isn’t emotional fireworks—it’s emotional fatigue. And that’s what makes it effective.

David Vodstrčil, making his acting debut, brings something no script could write: lived experience. His presence in the film isn’t performative—it’s participatory. He’s not treated as a plot device or a symbol. The film allows him to exist as himself, offering glimpses into how he perceives the world without framing him as a teaching moment. Camera choices gently shift into his perspective, not to manipulate sentiment but to build understanding. This isn’t representation used to score points—it’s representation rooted in authenticity.

Juliána Brutovská's Zuza enters the story and blends in seamlessly. She doesn’t disrupt the established dynamic; she absorbs into it, gradually becoming part of it without needing to justify her presence. Her relationship with Ester is full of potential as an emotional mirror and a philosophical foil, but that potential is left largely unexplored. The film hints at deeper differences but never commits to examining them. There’s an opportunity there that could’ve added a sharper edge.

The dialogue stays sparse, avoiding speeches or unnecessary explanation. This movie invites you to interpret body language and pauses, trusting the audience to stay engaged without being guided at every turn.

What elevates CARAVAN is how it handles disability without turning it into a spectacle or a burden. David isn’t inspirational or hapless. He’s present, opinionated, and complicated. The story doesn’t flatten him into a lesson or force him to change to validate Esther’s growth. If anything, her growth depends on accepting that he doesn’t need to change—she does. That inversion flips so many tropes on their heads, and the movie subtly handles it. Having a family member with Down syndrome and autism, I see so much in David that feels familiar; there’s a certain heart that you can’t fake!

By the end, we’re left with something more grounded—a sense that life may not have gotten easier, but perhaps it’s become more honest. Ester, David, and Zuza aren’t transformed in the conventional sense. But they’ve moved—emotionally, psychologically, and quite literally—toward something closer to balance.

This rare kind of story respects its characters too much to simplify their lives into easy arcs. And it respects its viewers enough not to tell them how to feel about it. By sidestepping drama and focusing instead on presence, CARAVAN becomes a quiet argument for nuance, one frame at a time.

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[photo courtesy of ALPHA VIOLET, MASTERFILM, NUTPRODUKCIA, TEMPESTA]

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