It was forever until the peaches ran out – Weekend – Kommersant
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In the Russian box office, Land of Alcarras is the first film in Catalan to win at the Berlin Film Festival. A multi-figure film novel with many storylines tells about a family of Catalan farmers who fight for their identity – literally with windmills.
Little Iris (Ainet Junu) plays with her cousins Pere and Pau (Joel and Isaac Rovira) in a wrecked azure wreck. Children imagine space odysseys far from the earthly routine, which is about to overtake charming dreamers, and their parents, and other relatives – up to grandfather Rogelio (Josep Abad), who still remembers the civil war in Spain.
If the sunset of the aristocratic paradise in the “Cherry Orchard” marked the arrival of the train, then the farmer’s idyll of “Alcarraz Land” is shaken by the appearance of an excavator. Picking up a Citroen 2CV like a rotten fruit, he leaves the local kids without their favorite playground. Adults busy picking peaches on the family plantation at first brush off their frustrated cries, but soon they themselves will lose something important.
During the civil war, when all farmers had a hard time, the Rogelio family sheltered their neighbors – and received these lands as a gift. True, the current patriarch did not sign documents on the right of ownership, which was used by a descendant of the late Pignol to use the Catalan hectares with greater profit. Picking and selling peaches is a complicated and thankless business: it is easier and more profitable to install solar panels as part of the EU’s green energy policy. The hereditary farmer Kimet (Jordi Pujol Dolset), his numerous relatives and colleagues do not like this turn of events: they intend to defend their rights, as it should be for the Catalans, who are not the first to quarrel with the Spanish authorities and laws. So, in the 2017 referendum, despite the use of police force, the municipality of Alcarraz voted for independence.
For all the importance of the political context, the film directed by Carla Simon and Sonia Castelo – the triumphant of last year’s Berlinale – will not be quite correctly attributed to action or political cinema. No matter how stereotypical it may sound, “Land of Alcarraz” is a panorama of rural life and in terms of plot rhythm too. Protests here are interspersed with back massage sessions (Kimet does not spare himself or loved ones), Rogelio’s memoirs are a childish struggle for the TV remote control, talk of family recipes is rehearsals for modern dances, and a production drama under the canopy of peach trees is a carnival where the elders compete, who will empty the decanter of wine faster, and the younger ones dance and participate in the folk mask procession.
“The Land of Alcarraz” is tempting to call it a multi-figure novel, which seems to be cramped in a two-hour timekeeping. In addition to the tragicomic struggle of a Catalan farmer with solar panels (windmills also appear in “Predators” – another Spanish hit about the land issue), there is at least the Iris line. The story of growing up in its purest form, the notorious “last summer of childhood”: the girl not only parted with her beloved “shuttle”, but also sees cracks in the relationship of a seemingly monolithic family (Kimet’s brother agrees to “collaborationism” – to maintain solar panels Pignol). In the margins is the drama of the eldest son Roger (Albert Bosch), who strives to take up his father’s burden, but is also open to the small temptations of the city. Yes, and the demanding ancestor does not know how to accept help: he is always dissatisfied, and as a last resort he generally pushes Roger away, reminding him that his priority is not the farm, but studying at the university.
Women and children in this struggle of man with the legal and market system (and tradition with the pace of technology) are assigned the role of observers. At first, Kimet does not allow his wife Dolors (Anna Otin) and her younger daughters to the trees, although they are ready to help with the collection of peaches, and a little away from the industrious buzz of the family, another drama is brewing – Marion (Ksenia Roset), who has entered puberty, whom the torments of her parents will hurt beyond personal experiences.
It is thanks to the polyphony of voices, the many micro-plots that begin in the middle of a word and disappear over the horizon, that “Land of Alcarras” is not perceived as a placard, although the sympathies of Carla Simon, who grew up in the countryside, are obvious and largely justified. The popular slogan in Spain “Yes to renewable energy, but no to this way” is projected onto many areas of life. The director sees the main problem in the lack of dialogue – between exhausted parents and children entering a big life, between representatives of different regions, traditions and sectors of the economy.
Just as a peach orchard begins with a single seed, so the array of problems tends to accumulate and grow over the years. Cutting everything down to the root – marks the final frame – is easy, but growing anew is difficult. People, after all, are also a valuable renewable resource – albeit more whimsical than batteries or windmills.
In theaters April 16
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