Alamar – To the Sea (2009)

Directed by: Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio | 73 minutes | drama | Actors: Jorge Machado, Natan Machado Palombini, Nestor Marín, Roberta Palombini

In the Mexican art-house film ‘Alamar’ nothing happens that leads to great excitement. The divorced Jorge and his son Natan spend a few days by the sea, in a fisherman’s house on stilts. The environment is deserted. Father, son and the old fisherman they stay with do little more than fish, feed the birds and deliver the caught fish to an island. The sun is shining, the sea is blue and in the background a singer is singing on the radio. And that’s all. Yet…

Yet ‘Alamar’ manages to captivate the entire playing time. The dramatic fact that forms the background of the story lies like a veil over the events and gives the film a melancholic undertone. After the holidays, Natan will leave with his mother for Rome to continue living there. Nothing is ever said about the impending departure, but we see the drama reflected in the disappearance of the adopted bird Blanquita. A bird flies out, just like a child, although that does not make saying goodbye any easier.

With the paradisiacal environment where father and son camp for a few days, you run the risk of natural kitsch as a film maker. Director González-Rubio avoids this risk by focusing not on the natural beauty of the environment, but the cultivated beauty of composition, framing and perspective. A boat that seems to tip over by itself, a caressing hand in close-up, the intertwined bodies of the frolicking father and son. And with the slightly worn underwater images, there is still the wonderfully rhythmic montage.

Also successful is the way we see a life in harmony with nature. That nature is not glorified or romanticized here. No cuddly camels, fuzzy chicks or overly human penguins. Fish is caught with fish heads and clubbed to death in the boat. The birds get the leftovers. The crocodile you feed today will turn its hungry mouth on you tomorrow. Because that’s nature.

For example, ‘Alamar’ is a film in which a maximum effect is achieved with minimal means. A moving and visually strong film, in which something emphatic is said in an unemphatic way about the way in which humans should deal with nature. A film that leaves you with two opposing feelings afterwards: the hope that this fishing paradise will never be discovered by tourists. And the desire to fly to this heaven on earth as soon as possible.