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The film begins with a brutal event. A man and his son traveling through a forest in a cart pulled by a horse, are brutally attacked by a man with his face covered. The father dies during the attack. The child died when the car is slammed against a cliff of the mountain. We are in a village in the more rural Catalonia, in the postwar period, and this convulsing the lives of its inhabitants, especially the child who discovers the event, whose family will be directly involved in solving the deaths. Fear and the differences between winners and losers inherited from the war, is in addition the dark secrets that transform people in search of survival.
Andreu, the child protagonist, looks like the circle of repression closes around his father. The suffering of his mother is reflected in his eyes, while he will try to solve a mystery that lie unexpected and unpleasant surprises that will collide directly against your integrity. Meanwhile the transition to adolescence and the promise of a better life definitely will mark its future.
Agusti Villaronga in this story is the perfect ingredient to function in a world that is very close to the cinematic universe which is more comfortable. And that is transmitted to the viewer through the excellent reconstruction of an era and an atmosphere so rarefied light, as obsessive as murky, but always with the innocence of childhood as the foundation on which everything rests. More trouble is the director when the complexity of history and the feelings involved in reaching the viewer transparently. There comes a time when the film loses steam by not knowing all the stream channel that offers dramatic. Fortunately recovered pulse in a dry finish, forceful and painful.
It is indisputable that there is a line teacher, the most visible, runs the entire film: the terrible consequences that a war can have on each sector of a community, the devastating moral impoverishment that can arise from misery. However, I think in the movie beats another powerful idea, that of the futile political ideas that result when the only thing you can hope for is precarious. This idea frees the film from manichaeism as it makes the reds are not as complete and the fascists have their reasons for being, so in addition to adding complexity follows more closely to the truth, because this has always been a country governed by rancor personal rather than by high ideals. Only with that explanation valid encounter more radical turn in the script. Otherwise, that would be a mistake not excusable as his other foibles (the stage of sleep, sounding forced some blame the girl resabida) if not totally absurd that would tie the entire work with any Hollywood product. That, of course, if it is also apparent from its harshness and rigor dramatic, which makes it one of the most authentic works about post-war and equate it with for example the "Manon" by HG Clouzot.
Clear that while some parts of the script may be more or less questionable where they really believe there is no discussion possible is in the visual style of the film, which is its main asset. It is among the best of European cinema this year. The operation of the camera, the perception of space and brilliant pictorial sense are used wisely to complement with the emotions that arise from the script. Images like the car tumbling by Singles de Tavertet or second visit to the leper colony are some of the tops of a luxurious and luscious succession of pictures of that power of suggestion to make the film is an intense experience in almost every minute and reveal that the film director has resources and knows his craft.
Because, according to conjecture, whether this meant Villaronga work open to a wider audience without honesty auction and buy off some sambenito director who crossed out tight and inaccessible, no doubt it has managed to grow and has proven if he feels like it can do more than just products complacent.
7/10
