‘Water’: Breaking the myth

After passing through the Directors’ Fortnight at the 75th Cannes Film Festival and the Spanish Cinema section at the 67th Seminci de Valladolid, ‘El agua’, the first feature film by Elena López Riera, who dedicates herself to social cinema with some hints of magical realism, is released in theaters. The director returns to her homeland, Orihuela, for this story of women with a certain criticism of the rural world and, above all, how legends have reduced the free will of women in search of tradition and how those who rebelled were ostracized.

This is what López Riera, who writes the script with veteran French film critic Philippe Azoury, tells us, and does it with a multi-layered story. On the one hand, he paints a portrait of that suburban youth who seem abandoned to their fate, places particular emphasis on the situation of the girls and focuses on Ana – played by newcomer Luna Pamies-, a girl he feels he has “the water inside”which translates into an ancient popular belief, which warned that, with each new great flood, the water carried away a young woman to marry.

The result is a fascinating game of genres, in which social drama is mixed with elements of the supernatural and magical realism.; In addition to introducing archival images of important cold drops that devastated Orihuela on several historical dates, to which he adds statements from village residents who watch the camera about the legend, which gives the film a certain documentary spirit. Just this combination increases the feeling of watching a costume designer story, with some fantastic dyes that evoke the style of the Thai Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

A fascinating debut feature that mixes the drama of the costume designers with a supernatural touch

Added to this is a family made up only of women and what the country considers cursed for having it “led men to perdition”. It is reflected in several generations, first with the grandmother of the family, played by Nieve de Medina, who suffered mistreatment and did not cry for the death of her husband; follows him the mother, played by Bárbara Lennie, a woman who has decided to start her own business with the village bar and who has chosen not to be romantically linked to anyoneand the daughter ends, who has to deal with the male-dominated prejudice against her family.

Riera knows how to find the balance between that more social part, in which she reveals the machismo that exists in the cities, as well as not hesitating to portray the vicious circle that forms in a young man with few possibilities of work in his environment. To this she adds the fantastic touch, in which she also exposes how the phenomenon of the cold drop has become all too widespread in the area. The end result is a film reminiscent of ‘La inocencia’, the debut of Lucía Alemany, albeit with that supernatural touch mentioned above. A fascinating story of female emancipation bringing the ability to combine costumbrism and renewal in a story that puts López Riera, a veteran short film director, at the forefront of the new wave of filmmakers.

Note: 8

The best: How he organically introduces the fantastic elements through archival material and sequences that evoke the documentary.

Worse: Some scenes of the protagonist’s conversations with her friends are somewhat trivial.