By: Henry J. Fromage –
The couple of films I was able to sneak in today at NYFF after a full workday in the (boo!) real world both dabble in magical realism.
628. Romeria
Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón’s latest is a deeply personal tale inspired by her own exploration of her family history in Galicia. Like Marina, the young protagonist here, she lost both of her parents young and was raised by one side of the family, only meeting the other side later in life. This is a bittersweet examination of the wedges years of family secrets can leave painfully open and exposed, but also a celebration of the bright, short lives a couple of youths not much older than she is today were able to live, in the end producing her. This is naturalistically acted and directed, until in spurts it very much isn’t, which only makes those moments pop all the more. Two Beers.
629. The Love That Remains
Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason does something similar in a way- examining family dysfunction obliquely through gorgeous natural surroundings and unaffected acting, before layering in more and more magical realist touches to express the emotions of a regular family in rural Iceland experiencing some statistically regular problems. Mom and Dad are getting a divorce, and we never particularly discover why any more than the nonplussed but resilient children do. Stunning cinematography and ecstatic symbolic imagery meld under Pálmason’s steady hand in endlessly intriguing combinations. Two Beers.
