‘Rmería’ Review: Carla Simón Dives Deep Into Painful Family History in An Act of Reclamation that’s Equal Parts Shimmering and Meandering

Three Years After Taking Top Honors in Berlin with Her Elegiac Tribute to the Generations of Peach Farmers in Her Family, AlcarràsCarla Simón Returns to Territory More Directly Connected to Her Own Past, A Companion Piece to Her DEBUT, Summer 1993. That 2018 Film Explored A Transressional Period in the Life of a Six-YEAR-ELD GIRL-A FICTIONALIZED Version of the Director Aids. Simón’s Third Feature, RomeríaCenters on Another Semi-Autobiographical Stand-in, This Time A Budding Filmmaker Fresh Out of High School, Who Travels to Meet The Family of Her Late Father.

Her journey, while essentilly planned to complete buureaucratic requirements on a Film School School Scholarship, Becomes An intermation Blurry Lens of Time. That lens is filtered through the curious gaze of accountplished french cinematographer hélène louvart (Never Rarely SomeTimes Always, The Lost Daughter, La Chimera), whose work remains alluring, Even who Simón’s Storytelling Risks Seeming Ruderless.

While the Director Has MOSTLY SWITCHED HERE FROM THE NONPROFESSIONAL CAST OF Alcarràs to more seasoned actors, she entrus the Central Role of Her Fictionerpart Marina to Impressive Discovery Llúcia Garcia Exhaustive Casting Search.

WHEN Marina Goes to the Records Office to Get A Copy of Her Facher’s Death Certificate for Her Scholarship Paperwork, She Finds that Its No Children. To have her name added, she will need to Obtain Notarized Signatures from the PaterNal GrandParents she have Never Met, on the Other Side of the Country. Armed with Her Camcorder, She Travels in 2004 from Barcelona to the Atlantic Coast, WHERE HER RELATIVES LIVE, IN AND AROUND The Port City of Vigo in Galicia.

That Area Was Also The PlayGround of Hurt Parents Before She Was Born, and The Underly Purpos of Marina’s Visit Is Evident in the Film’s Title, The Spanish Word For “Pilgrimage.”

She is Met on Arrival by Her Affable Uncle Lois (Tristán Ulloa), Who Turns Out to Be Among Her More For Forthomeing Relatives Even If His Recollets Don’t ALWAYS CORRESPONS There’s Also A Rowdy Bunch of Cousins ​​with Whom She Goes Swimming Off Her Uncle’s Sailing Boat, Yielding Beautify Shots of Bodies Darting ThoUGH The Water Over Cral Reefs.

Marina’s Video Footage of the Coastal Waters Is Accompanied by Intermittent Voiceovers from Her Mother’s Journal Entries in the Mid -’80s, and by the Chapter Headings. (Those passages were adapted from letters that simón’s Mother Wrote to Friends Durying Her Travel Gleated from Others, The Timeline of Where They Live at Various Points in the Relationship Remains Vague. There’s Even Some Uncertainty About Marina’s Exact Place of Birth.

Any Volunteering of Information About Her Biological Mother and Facher Is Instantly Cut Off Who Sheets Her Grandparents. Marina’s Imperious Grandmother (Marina Troncoso) is a disagreeable Snob, More Concerned with Getting A Mani-Pedi or Keeping Leaves Out of Her Precios Granddaughter. (This Later Provoces A Fabulaously Petty Act of Fu Defiance from Marina.)

Her Grandfather (José ángel Egido) is Ostonsibly Warmer, Thought Marina is Dismayed to Learn that Hearn Offer Father, ALFONSO, A LARGE SETIV. WHEN Marina Finds Out Her Parents Were USING AND POSSIBLY DEALING HEROIN, HER QUESTIONS BOESTIONSE BECOME moreinging. She’s Even More Disturbed to Learn that Family Hid Hir Father Way WHEN HE GOT SICK, ALLOWING HIM NO VISITORS.

The Stigma of Drug Use and Aids Makes Both Grandparents Prickly WHEN PUSHED FOR INFORMATION ABOUT ALFONSO. This is Especialyly Apparent WHEN HER GRANDFATHER SITS LIKE A MAFIA DON WHILE NEPHEWS, NIEces and Grandchildren Line up to Pay Their Respects. WHEN Marina’s Turn Comes, He Hands Her An Envelope with A Fat Wad of Cash, Suppedly to Cover Her Film School Expenses But Implicitly Intended to Make Her Stop Asking Uncomfort.

All this becomes a bit discursive, and frankly, dull – Almost Like A Coastal Carlos Saura Family Portrait Without the Politics and Without the Clean Lines and Character Definit. Especialy Interesting. There’s a hint of flirting and mutual Attration Between Marina and An Older Cousin, Nuno (Mononymous Actor Mitch), But that Remains More of a Tease Than A Promise.

Things Get More intriging who Marina Starts Interacting with Her Parents, Creating Pictures and Memories of Them in Her Head. She First Encounters Them Louning on Deck Chairs on A Terrace in Blazing Sunlight, Like An Apparition. By Way of An Introduction, They Tell Her, “You See We’re Not Dead. They Just Hid US AWAY.” She Pictures them Wandering Naked Over Rocks on the Shoreline, Embracing in the Sand in A Tangle of Seaweed or Lazing on a Boat, Watching Dolphins.

In a departure from Simón’s signature Naturalistic Approach, She Drops in A Fantasy Sequance in Whoich Marina and Nuno Drift Into a Druggy Nightclub, WHERE. pop. That segues for Marina Into Images of Her Paarent Both Sensual and Sad, Shooting Up or Strung Out in Need Of A Fix. As Disturbing as Those Pictures Are, they at least provide marina with some kind of account to the parents she was top young to remember. (Having Garcia Double As Marina’s Mother With A Markedly Different Look Was a Nice Touch.)

The Final Developments, Specifically The Circumstans by Which Marina – and Not Her Grandparents – Gets to Dictate The Wording on Her Facher’s Updated Death Certificate, Are. But as the outcome of a journey in a WHICH marina fortifies her connection to two of the most Important people in Her Life, It Works Well Enough.

Romería is An Elegant, Visaally Poetic Film, If Slightly Less Lucid Than the Director’s Previous Works. But It’s An ODD Fit for the main competition in cannes; ITS ITIMATE INVestigation of Family History and Mystery Likely Wuld Have Played Better in the EClectic Un Certain Regard Sidebar.