‘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 check 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 relatively beautiful third characteristic, Carla Simon returns to the autobiographical materials that impressed her first movie, Summer time 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 reward for capturing the unpredictable, mercurial beast that’s the household. 

Simon has a uncommon reward 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 time 1993 and Alcarras, received prime prizes at Berlin (the Golden Bear for Alcarras, and the Era KPlus prize for Summer time 1993). Whereas Summer 1993 and Romeria are each impressed by Simon’s personal life (she was orphaned as a younger youngster, dropping each dad and mom to AIDS contracted because of their heroin dependancy), this newest movie exhibits Simon’s alter-ego on the cusp between youngster and grownup: the digicam 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, nearly childlike high quality. She spends a lot of the early a part of the movie peering via 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 together 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 dad and mom, teasing out the inconsistencies within the household narratives, it’s tempting to imagine that Marina is a passive observer. However right here, the digicam is essential: it’s a tool that permits 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 manner, this can be a image concerning the start 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 relatively than the late 80s, leaving a full 5 years wherein he failed to fulfill her or be a part of her life. The home of her grandparents, described by one in every of her uncles as “horrible” individuals, reveals one other stunning reality concerning the destiny of her father.

Whereas Marina is connecting together with her father’s facet of the household, her mom is a presence within the movie via 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 remaining third of the movie, to introduce Marina’s dad and mom as characters on display screen relatively than ghosts simply outdoors 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, displaying Marina’s dad and mom lastly taking form for his or her daughter as three-dimensional individuals relatively than elusive, half-drawn sketches.