After her mother’s death, six-year-old Frida is sent to her uncle’s family to live with them in the countryside. But Frida finds it hard to forget her mother and adapt to her new life.
Coming-of-age films aren’t exactly rare. From “Stand by Me” to “Boyhood,” from “The 400 Blows” to “I’m Not Scared,” from “Kids” to last year’s fantastic “The Florida Project” – numerous visionary directors have painted that fragile, heartrending moment of transitioning from innocence to adulthood. Now it’s Carla Simón’s turn to join the ranks of Rob Reiner, Richard Linklater, François Truffaut, Gabriele Salvatores, Larry Clark and Sean Baker.
Her feature-length debut, “Summer 1993,” also brings to mind the works by the Belgian Dardenne brothers (see: “The Son”), in its pseudo-documentary approach, languid pace and a borderline-spiritual ending, both deeply revelatory and as delicate as porcelain. The film didn’t quite make it to the Oscars, although it was in the run to be nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Too bad. With its hushed, wondrous, colorful, tragic and joyous look at childhood – one afflicted with trauma – Simón used the subtlest of brushstrokes to create one of the prettiest painting on the cinematic canvas of 2017. She has a bright future ahead of her.
Kudos go out to her cast. It all comes down to four principal roles: the six-year-old Frida (Laia Artigas), whose parents just passed away and who is thrust from the urban landscape of Barcelona into the jungle-like environment of the Catalina countryside by her somewhat-insistent grandparents; Anna (the adorable Paula Robles), her younger cousin (but really a new sister), precocious and infinitely trusting; and Anna’s parents, Esteve (David Verdauger) and Marga (Bruna Cusí), the latter of whom commands a sequence of such tenderness it’s almost painful to write about. It involves her lying down next to a distraught Frida and caressing her gently, like only a mother could.
I mentioned that Simón “portrays” an actor – this may be a mistake, for the actors seem to live a life of their own, the camera glimpsing them vérité-style, in prolonged scenes that folks jaded on Marvel may find coma-inducing, but I found striking in how authentic they are. The camera assumes Frida’s perspective, sometimes literally following her from behind, the back of her curly head in focus, the world behind her a kaleidoscope of colors both familiar and muted, exciting and distressing. The film is clearly autobiographical, the director drawing from her own experiences, all nostalgic images that seem to come unfiltered from her mind straight to the screen.
Chickens plucking at their own spilled eggs. Children dancing on a dimly-lit porch. Two stalwart farmers bleeding a sheep to death. Endlessly wandering through the countryside, touching trees and stone walls and dirt. An argument between parents, both distant and incomprehensible and deeply affecting. Running after a car as your family abandons you. Abandoning a child out of spite, because you didn’t know better. Stringing together those images into a lyrical narrative, Simón creates a tangible, vivid representation of what it’s like to be a lost child, on the brink of bursting through your own skin.
But what really ties the film together is its final sequence, so keenly observed, poignant and heartbreakingly real, it lends even more depth to the preceding proceedings. It’s Laia Artigas’ shining moment, her Frida finally tearing through the hazy veneer of childhood and getting a raw glimpse of reality. It’s an astounding feat of acting, a rare moment that caught me off-guard, left me wondering how this tiny, inexperienced actress managed not to only hold the screen for over 90 minutes, but also so subtly portray such a complex spectrum of emotions. But it’s not just her. All four leads play a crucial role in how this magical scene unfolds – and ends – and deserve equal credit. Both intimate in scope and epic in its depth of feeling, “Summer 1993” hits all the right notes, ending with the perfect one. Seems like Carla Simón has come of age, artistically speaking. And just like Frida, she had nothing to worry about. Things will be okay.
In theaters Friday, May 25th
[…] 3. Summer 1993 […]