Broey Deschanel

TIFF Review: El Agua

Added 2022-09-09 19:56:42 +0000 UTC

The debut feature of director Elena López Riera, El Agua is an astounding first film. It follows a 17-year-old girl named Ana who is navigating the winter of her adolescence during a particularly sleepy summer in the Valencia region of Spain. The story takes place in Orihuela - a small municipality that López Riera herself hails from, and a town that is the primary focus of all of her work.

López Riera weaves elements of magical realism together with contemporary youth culture to deliver an incredibly unique and evocative viewing experience. El Agua offers a harmonious balance of the senses. In one ear reverberates the combustive techno enjoyed by Ana and her party-going friends, in the other - total silence, as we sit with Ana in her most contemplative moments.

Ana, played by brilliant newcomer and Orihuela local, Luna Pamies, is a teenager - but she is also Every Woman. A composite of her ancestors, of all the women in her constrained, traditional neighbourhood, and all the ghosts that haunt their small town superstitions. Ana is falling in love with Jose, a boy who has recently moved into town under the guidance of his strict father. But as the town awaits a major flood, one that has afflicted the area for centuries, old superstitions and neighbourhood tensions begin to resurface. Faced with the prophetic feeling that she will be taken away by the flood like other local women before her, Ana must decipher between what is pre-determined and what is mutable.

López Riera takes the 1 hour and 44 minute running time of her feature to reflect on the friction between drawing comfort from where you come from, and desperately needing to leave it. She gently stitches into her story themes of intergenerational hardship, small-town religiosity, and most impressively - magic. With its cast of majority first-time actors and sumptuous visuals, what comes together before our eyes is a breathtaking foray into filmmaking.