Questing into her past with a camcorder, a young woman confronts the worst in 'Romería'

Early successful “Romería,” the film’s main character, Marina, is asked by immoderate children if she’s ever seen the Santa Compaña, a postulation of ghosts who, successful Spanish legend, supposedly rotation successful a battalion crossed the landscape. Humoring the kids, Marina says she hasn’t. That’s good, 1 of the girls responds. “They’re spirits that can’t die.”

As it happens, Marina is really connected a travel of sorts to link with the dormant — and truthful is Spanish writer-director Carla Simón, whose 3rd diagnostic is an autobiographical communicative astir her ain quest to marque bid with her precocious parents. Slender but flecked with magical touches, “Romería” is truthful gentle it ne'er rather qualifies arsenic haunting. Nonetheless, Simón stirs up the ineffable sadness that comes with wanting answers to the mysteries of your household — and then, similar it oregon not, receiving them.

Newcomer Llúcia Garcia plays Marina, an 18-year-old aspiring filmmaker. It’s July 2004, and she’s traveled to the picturesque larboard metropolis of Vigo to get authorities paperwork that volition marque her eligible for a assemblage scholarship. She ne'er knew her begetter Alfonso, who died successful 1987. For immoderate reason, determination are nary records indicating that she was his daughter. Hence the travel to Vigo to spot her paternal grandparents for the archetypal clip truthful she tin authenticate her ancestry.

Simón, whose erstwhile features “Summer 1993” and “Alcarràs” besides grappled with household matters, follows on with Marina connected the mode to this anxious meeting. Marina’s parent died lone a fewer years aft Alfonso, making Marina an orphan. But the mom’s parting gift, a diary, provides opaque glimpses into her beingness with Alfonso successful the mid-1980s. Before Marina arrives astatine her grandparents’ home, though, she indispensable tally a gauntlet of uncles, aunts and cousins, their reactions to her beingness varying from lukewarm to wary. Repeatedly, Marina is told she looks conscionable similar her mom, but the remark occasionally contains a hint of bitterness. Many of these caller faces presumption her arsenic an unwelcome reminder of a past they’d similar to forget. When they spot Marina, it’s similar they’re looking astatine a ghost.

The strongest constituent of Garcia’s doe-like show is the mode it captures idiosyncratic successful the midst of shedding her adolescence, gingerly trying connected adulthood. Over the people of a fewer days, this bashful teen, ever equipped with her camcorder and acold little free-spirited than her cousins, volition beryllium beset by her father’s feuding family. Silently observing the passive-aggressive maelstrom, Marina volition person an aggravated immersion successful what her beingness mightiness person been similar if he’d lived.

But she rapidly realizes that their memories of the antheral are acold from perfect. No 1 tin determine precisely wherever Alfonso lived successful Vigo. And, much troublingly, Marina’s content that helium died successful 1987 is contradicted by relatives, who importune that it was 5 years later. If Marina has that accusation wrong, what other does she not know?

“Romería” is hardly the archetypal movie successful which an impressionable psyche goes connected the hunt for the parents she ne'er had. Likewise, viewers volition not beryllium startled erstwhile Marina yet discovers achy secrets astir her ma and dada that origin her to reconsider those phantom figures.

Simón, who undertook a akin odyssey astatine the aforesaid age, ne'er allows this delicate communicative to succumb to self-indulgence oregon an inflated consciousness of its ain importance. Instead, her movie is suffused with a rich, casual immediacy. Simón and her prima bracingly callback the energy of younker arsenic Marina prepares for beingness arsenic an artist. The movie, successful part, is astir however she finds her voice.

Simón’s films favour naturalism and “Romería” leaves ample country for Spain’s seaside quality and glorious sunshine. The calming locales some complement and contradict the plot’s revelations, which are hardly bombshells but bash talk to however well-to-do families labour to shove inconvenient skeletons into the closet. If anything, Marina volition beryllium much shocked by her grandparents (José Ángel Egido and Marina Troncoso), whose fiercely icy demeanor suggests this teen should see herself fortunate not to person grown up astir them.

Because “Romería” is simply a coming-of-age story, Marina volition beryllium tempted by cute boys; she’ll besides statesman to show a rebellious streak. As the representation rolls along, Garcia shows a much assertive side, relishing her character’s emergence from her shell. But this humble saga saves its biggest astonishment for its last reels, erstwhile the communicative folds successful connected itself beguilingly, allowing Marina to subordinate to her ma and dada successful ways she ne'er had before. Maybe we tin ne'er genuinely cognize our parents, but if we’re lucky, we tin summation the maturity to 1 time spot them successful ourselves.