‘Alcarràs Review: Labor Of Love

In a car on the edge of a peach orchard, three children are shooting imaginary aliens with fingerguns when a roaring crane appears, interrupting their alien fantasies with fear of the earth. In Alcarraz, the second film by Spanish director Carla Simon, the loss of a farm by a Catalan family is a revolution of cosmic proportions.

Early in the film, the Sully clan realizes that the neighborhood handshake that restricted their land ownership decades ago is no longer valid; The current landowner plans to cut down the trees and build a solar farm. As the family gathers their last harvest, the middle-aged man in the house, Kemit (Jordi Pujol-Dulcett), goes crazy and gets into a fight with his brother-in-law, who decides to accept the landlord's job offer. Brawls break out between Kime and his sister, while his children, including tall Roger (Albert Bosch) and young Marion (Xenia Rozet), start their own mini-rebellion.

Simon and his team of amateur actors bring naturalness to life. Scenes ebb and flow one after another, subplots rise and fall like ripples in a pond as the focus slowly shifts from one character to another. The film is a whirlwind of conversation and action—gathering, digging, harvesting, hunting—making agriculture central to the meaning of family time and togetherness.

If Alcarraz sounds bland as a summer afternoon, it can also sound bewildering: Simon only occasionally ventures outside the limited world of the Soles to show us the political stakes of their position. Nevertheless, the spectacular visuals of the film: the make-up face of a girl frowning in a crowd of revelers; Solar panels gleam ominously under the full moon - they leave an indelible mark.

Alcarraz
unclassified. In Catalan, Spanish and English with subtitles. Duration: 2 hours. To the cinema.