‘Romeria’ review: Carla Simon’s third, semi-autobiographical feature is ‘pensive and rather lovely’

Dir/scr: Carla Simon. Spain/Germany. 2025. 112 minutes.

Orphaned at a younger age and raised by her mom’s household in Barcelona, 18-year-old Marina (Llucia Garcia) has by no means met her father’s prolonged clan within the metropolis of Vigo, in Galicia. However to use for a scholarship to review cinema, she wants an official type signed by her grandparents. Camcorder in hand, she travels to Spain’s stormy Atlantic coast to discover her roots and uncover whether or not sharing blood is similar as being a part of a household. Together with her pensive and somewhat beautiful third characteristic, Carla Simon returns to the autobiographical materials that impressed her first movie, Summer season 1993. Whereas this image lacks the guileless immediacy of the kid’s-eye view of her first two movies, Romeria demonstrates as soon as once more that Simon has a uncommon present for capturing the unpredictable, mercurial beast that’s the household. 

Simon has a uncommon present for capturing the unpredictable, mercurial beast that’s the household

Romeria premieres in the primary Competitors at Cannes, after Simon’s earlier two movies, Summer season 1993 and Alcarras, gained prime prizes at Berlin (the Golden Bear for Alcarras, and the Technology KPlus prize for Summer season 1993). Whereas Summer 1993 and Romeria are each impressed by Simon’s personal life (she was orphaned as a younger little one, shedding each mother and father to AIDS contracted on account of their heroin habit), this newest movie reveals Simon’s alter-ego on the cusp between little one and grownup: the digital camera that she carries is a hyperlink to her future self. Engrossing, perceptive and quietly affecting, this must be a title of curiosity for each distributors and additional festivals. 

As Marina, Garcia has a gamine, virtually childlike high quality. She spends a lot of the early a part of the movie peering by her curtain of a fringe and loitering, barely awkwardly. on the periphery of her father’s household, as if she hasn’t fairly learnt their rhythms and guidelines. As in her different movies, Simon’s dialogue performs out in a number of languages. Marina’s father’s rich household speaks Spanish; on the cellphone along with her adoptive mom, Marina speaks Catalan. We additionally hear French (one in every of her uncles and her cousins lived there for a time) and Galician.

Initially, as a result of the character listens so intently to the tales about her mother and father, teasing out the inconsistencies within the household narratives, it’s tempting to imagine that Marina is a passive observer. However right here, the digital camera is essential: it’s a tool that enables Marina to be energetic within the telling of her personal story. Her camcorder footage – flat and fuzzy and authentically cheap-looking – is woven into the movie. In a approach, it is a image in regards to the beginning of a filmmaker as a lot as it’s about unravelling the secrets and techniques of the previous. 

And there’s no scarcity of secrets and techniques. Garcia’s expressive face silently registers the form of seismic emotional shift that undermines the foundations of her childhood when she learns that her father died within the early 90s somewhat than the late 80s, leaving a full 5 years through which he failed to satisfy her or be a part of her life. The home of her grandparents, described by one in every of her uncles as “horrible” folks, reveals one other surprising reality in regards to the destiny of her father.

Whereas Marina is connecting along with her father’s facet of the household, her mom is a presence within the movie by entries in a diary that she stored on the time (the phrases are these of Simon’s personal mom, taken from the letters that she wrote to family and friends). The choice, within the last third of the movie, to introduce Marina’s mother and father as characters on display somewhat than ghosts simply exterior of the body is the image’s largest gamble. The pair are performed, barely distractingly, by Garcia and Mitch, who additionally performs Marina’s charming stoner cousin Nuno. It’s a narrative segue which nearly works, exhibiting Marina’s mother and father lastly taking form for his or her daughter as three-dimensional folks somewhat than elusive, half-drawn sketches.