It’s 1987, a hot summer day in your average small rural Argentine town. So hot that everyone longs for rain. Lucía (Melissa Romero) and Elena (Florencia Decal) are two teenage sisters stranded at their parent’s home. Bored stiff, Elena lies up in bed with her leg in a plaster, whereas Lucía swims laps at the pool early in the morning. Later that day, she spends some time studying hard, as she wants to enrol in the University of Buenos Aires.
But her annoying younger sister keeps distracting her, so she heads to the countryside with Ana (Sol Zavala), a shy book-loving girl her age. Far from the messing-around of other teens and the presence of adults, the two girls are to confront their most intimate, newborn feelings with unexpected tenderness.
Featured earlier this year in the Berlin Generation section, Argentine filmmaker Inés Barrionuevo debut film Atlántida is a coming of age story that hinges on the tiniest details of the everyday rather than on big-scale drama. Like the works by Celina Murga (Ana y los otros, La tercera orilla), Atlántida also shows the filmmaker’s belief that the essence of things is to be found in extreme naturalism: observing people and their routines, following characters closely with an unobtrusive camera, focusing on faces and gestures, and only using dialogue when strictly necessary.
And while it’s true that in formal terms Atlántida is indeed an accomplished feature — the believable performances, especially that of Florencia Decal, create convincingly candid characters; the luminous cinematography ably conveys summery feelings and moods; the leisurely paced editing perfectly expresses the laid back rhythm of small towns — it’s equally true that this story of sexual awakening could have used a stronger dramatic drive.
Granted, the many well-elaborated vignettes build up a singular universe. But the deliberate absence of a stronger dramatic crescendo doesn’t always prove effective. Perhaps a few more dramatic scenes would have given the film a more gripping edge. It’s clear that the filmmaker went for a low-key approach, which is perhaps one of the best ways to tell this story. The problem is that it gets too low-key often times. Leaving that aside, Atlántida is a film that addresses some of the joys and tribulations of adolescence with modest elegance and emotional honesty.
P.S.
Atlántida (Argentina, 2014) Written and directed by Inés María Barrionuevo. With Melisa Romero, Sol Zavala, Florencia Decall. Cinematography: Ezequiel Salinas. Editing: Rosario Suárez. Running time: 88 minutes.
