Lincoln Film Society brought another thought-provoking piece of World Cinema to audiences last week - Catalonian director Carla Simón's film debut, the largely autobiographical, Summer 1993 (Estiu 1993), a moving, sedate picture about life through the eyes of six-year-old Frida (the brilliantly natural and precocious Laia Artigas). Following the initially unexplained death of her mother, Frida must go and live with her Aunt and Uncle, and their daughter, Anna (the equally brilliant Paula Robles), and start life anew, albeit a life of newly lost innocence. Summer 1993 is wonderfully permeated with high-key lighting and point-of-view shots from Frida's perspective, techniques which serve to highlight the wonder and mystery of childhood. The protracted scenes of Frida and Anna playing make-believe and engaging with other children are moments to which we can all relate, drawing on our own childhood experiences.
I was touched by the recurring scenes of Frida's frequent visits to an idol of the Virgin Mary nestled among the foliage in the garden near her new house, to which she makes offerings as a means of communicating with her late mother. This childhood preoccupation with idolatry recalls other European films dealing with childhood such as French director, Francois Truffaut's semi-autobiographical Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows, 1959) in which the child protagonist Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), the product of a loveless union, seeks solace in making a shrine to his literary idol, Balzac. Moreover, the scene in Simón's film where Frida explores the outdoors at night with a torch, calling out for her mother, recalls the actions of the protagonist Ana (Ana Torrent) in Spanish director, Victor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive (El Espíritu de la Colmena, 1973), who, after seeing the film, Frankenstein (1931), in her village cinema, goes in search of the film's monster herself, becoming obsessed with spectral presences in Civil War era Spain. Simón's film will appeal to everyone because of its relatable experiences of childhood. However, for anyone like myself, who lost their mothers much too early in life, this film will have a much deeper meaning.
I was touched by the recurring scenes of Frida's frequent visits to an idol of the Virgin Mary nestled among the foliage in the garden near her new house, to which she makes offerings as a means of communicating with her late mother. This childhood preoccupation with idolatry recalls other European films dealing with childhood such as French director, Francois Truffaut's semi-autobiographical Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows, 1959) in which the child protagonist Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), the product of a loveless union, seeks solace in making a shrine to his literary idol, Balzac. Moreover, the scene in Simón's film where Frida explores the outdoors at night with a torch, calling out for her mother, recalls the actions of the protagonist Ana (Ana Torrent) in Spanish director, Victor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive (El Espíritu de la Colmena, 1973), who, after seeing the film, Frankenstein (1931), in her village cinema, goes in search of the film's monster herself, becoming obsessed with spectral presences in Civil War era Spain. Simón's film will appeal to everyone because of its relatable experiences of childhood. However, for anyone like myself, who lost their mothers much too early in life, this film will have a much deeper meaning.