EL MAR is a tough, stark, utterly brilliant, brave work of cinematic art. Director Agustí Villaronga, with an adaptation by Antoni Aloy and Biel Mesquida of Blai Bonet's novel, has created a film that traces the profound effects of war on the minds of children and how that exposure wrecks havoc on adult lives. And though the focus is on war's heinous tattoo on children, the transference to like effects on soldiers and citizens of adult age is clear. This film becomes one of the finest anti-war documents without resorting to pamphleteering: the end result has far greater impact because of its inherent story following children's march toward adulthood.
A small group of children are shown in the Spanish Civil War of Spain, threatened with blackouts and invasive nighttime slaughtering of citizens. Ramala (Nilo Mur), Tur (David Lozano), Julia (Sergi Moreno), and Francisca (Victoria Verger) witness the terror of the assassination of men, and the revenge that drives one of them to murder and suicide. These wide-eyed children become adults, carrying all of the psychic disease and trauma repressed in their minds.
We then encounter the three who survive into adulthood where they are all confined to a tuberculosis sanitarium. Ramala (Roger Casamajor) has survived as a male prostitute, protected by his 'john' Morell (Juli Mira), and has kept his life style private. Tur (Bruno Bergonzini) has become a frail sexually repressed gay male whose cover is his commitment to Catholicism and the blur of delusional self-mutilation/crucifixion. Francisca (Antònia Torrens) has become a nun and serves the patients in the sanitarium. The three are re-joined by their environment in the sanitarium and slowly each reveals the scars of their childhood experiences with war. Tur longs for Ramala's love, Ramala longs to be free from his Morell, and Francisca must face her own internal needs covered by her white nun's habit.
The setting of the sanitarium provides a graphic plane where the thin thread between life and death, between lust and love, and between devotion and destruction is played out. To detail more would destroy the impact of the film on the individual viewer, but suffice it to say that graphic sex and full nudity are involved (in some of the most stunningly raw footage yet captured on film) and the viewer should be prepared to witness every form of brutality imaginable. For this viewer these scenes are of utmost importance and Director Villaronga is to be applauded for his perseverance and bravery in making this story so intense. The actors, both as children and as adults, are splendid: Roger Cassamoor, Bruno Bergonzini and Antònia Torrens are especially fine in inordinately difficult roles. The cinematography by Jaime Peracaula and the haunting musical score by Javier Navarrete serve the director's vision. A tough film, this, but one highly recommended to those who are unafraid to face the horrors of war and its aftermath. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Grady Harp
