Carla Simón’s third film, ‘Romería’, closes a thematic trilogy about the family’s family history. Since her debut with ‘Summer 1993’, the Catalan filmmaker has used cinema as a means to find answers about its origin. In that film he entered the childhood of a girl who, after his biological parents died, was adopted by a new family. In ‘Alcarràs’, winner of the Golden Bear for the best film in the Berlinale, he portrayed the life of a family of farmers in the rural Catalonia who faced what could be their last harvest of peachs, since the implementation of solar panels in the field was imminent.
The two films, with an autobiographical tone, presented an author with a gifted sensitivity to capture family dynamics with a powerful visual universe. ‘Romería’ dialogues thematically with them, especially with ‘Summer 1993’, but at the narrative level it is unmarked from their predecessors. Simon continues to be faithful to his naturalistic style, but takes a step further to the tape, daring to include elements that shake that realism that he had previously explored.
Released in the official section of the Cannes Festival, ‘Romería’ is divided into two temporal lines: one in the 80s and another in the 2000. The latter functions as the foundation in which the film is built, while the other takes a more lyrical drift. The story begins when Marina, an 18 -year -old Catalan girl, travels to Vigo to meet her biological father’s wealthy family and get a role that recognizes her as her daughter to be able to ask for a scholarship for the university. Through conversations with different family members and relying on the newspaper that his mother written, he rebuilds the history of his parents, victims of the AIDS pandemic.
Both times are intertwined in the narrative until they reach a point where the film breaks and gives a risky jump. Simon’s characteristic neorealism becomes reverie, into a kind of magical realism that falls in love with his bold poetry. Hélène Louvart’s precious photograph stands out portraying the 80s with a granulated texture in romantic scenes where the bodies of the protagonists intertwine on a bed of sea seaweed. On a visual level, ‘Romería’ is the most sophisticated work of the filmmaker, capable of creating beautiful images at the service of a solid and tremendously ambitious narrative.
It is essential to highlight the acting work, where Simon again chooses to work with unknown faces. Their castings are long and meticulous but always successful, since here again, each member of the extensive family is perfectly chosen and interpreted. Llúcia Garcia, who was discovered walking down the street, shines in her double role as Marina and her biological mother, contributing sweetness and light to her characters. Mitch, in his first role in a feature film, looks especially in his interpretation as Marina’s father.
Despite being a deeply autobiographical work, Simon turns the personal into a politician without judgments or didactism, portraying with enormous sensitivity how an entire generation was erased by pure shame, for what they will say. The director advocates calling things by name and not hiding them, since the only thing that derives is in more pain. Marina, her alter Ego, unlike most of her family’s most adult characters, never has any repair to verbalize that her parents died of AIDS.
Through an enveloping, poetic and relevant story both personal and socially, Carla Simón takes a giant step to the major film leagues with ‘pilgrimage’, a film that seeks to turn memories into images to be able to resurrect the dead.
