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Alcarràs (film)
2022 film From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Alcarràs is a 2022 Spanish-Italian[2] drama film directed by Carla Simón. It is set and shot in Alcarràs, Catalonia, featuring a non-professional cast of Catalan-speaking actors. The plot is a family drama about the disappearance of traditional peach-harvesting activities.
The film had its world premiere at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival on 15 February 2022, where it won the Golden Bear, the festival's top prize, becoming the first Catalan-language film to do so.[3] The film was selected as the Spanish entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards,[4] but it was not nominated.
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Plot
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Set in the rural village of Alcarràs in Catalonia, Spain, the Solé family has been cultivating peach orchards on the same land for generations. In the height of summer, during the harvesting season, follows the family’s daily life as they gather fruit and tend to the farm. But, sadly, the land they’ve farmed for decades, which was once given to them as a verbal promise by the Pinyol family during the Spanish Civil War, is now being reclaimed.
The new landowner, Mr. Pinyol, plans to uproot the orchard and install solar panels, leaving the Solés with no legal recourse and facing the end of their way of life.
At the center of the family is Quimet, the stubborn and hot-tempered patriarch, who refuses to accept the situation. He believes the land is theirs by right and is determined to harvest the fruit and resist eviction.
His wife Dolors tries to keep the family together. Their teenage children, Roger and Mariona, each cope in different ways. Roger, restless and frustrated, dreams of making a living through modern means like growing cannabis, while Mariona escapes into dance and performance, rehearsing for the village’s traditional pageant.
The younger generation, including the joyful cousins Iris, Pau, and Pere, are largely unaware of the adult conflicts. They play among the trees, stage mock trials of a “stolen tractor”, and build forts in the fields, symbolizing a vanishing innocence and the deep emotional bond the family has with the land.
As summer draws to a close, so too does their time on the farm, Quimet’s relationship with his brother and uncle becomes strained over differing ideas on how to respond. Attempts at negotiation with Pinyol fail. Machinery eventually arrives to begin dismantling the orchard, and the family is powerless to stop it.
Quimet and his family sit down for what may be their last lunch under the trees, surrounded by the sound of chainsaws. The children dance one final time in the orchard, even as the bulldozers draw near.
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Cast
Production
The screenplay was written by director Carla Simón and Arnau Vilaró.[5] The film was produced by Avalon PC, Elastica Films, Vilaüt Films, Kino Produzioni, and TV3,[6][7] with the participation of TVE and Movistar+ and the support of ICAA, ICEC, Creative Europe's MEDIA, Eurimages, MIBACT, and Diputació de Lleida.[8] Shooting began on 1 June 2021 in the area of Alcarràs, province of Lleida, with the shooting window constrained to summer due to the film's setting based on peach harvest cycles.[5][9] The cast is formed of non-professional actors from the province of Lleida.[10] Shot in Catalan, the entire cast used the local Western dialect (Lleidatà) of the Catalan language.[11][12] Filming wrapped after 8 weeks of shooting.[7] María Zamora, Stefan Schmitz, Tono Folguera, and Sergi Moreno are credited as producers.[6]
Release
The film was screened in the official competition of the 72nd Berlinale on 15 February 2022.[2][9] The film was also screened at the Málaga Festival on 19 March 2022.[13][14] Initially announced to run as part of the festival's official competition,[13] the festival and the film's producers agreed to screen the film out of competition instead.[15]
Co-distributed by Avalon DA and Elastica Films in Spain, the film was theatrically released on 29 April 2022.[13][16] Starting with a distribution to 169 theatres, the film was the most watched debut film in its opening weekend, and second film overall (first in Catalonia) after The Northman.[17] Distributed by Wonder Pictures, it opened in Italian theatres on 26 May 2022.[18] The film was selected for the 60th New York Film Festival's main slate.[19] By August 2022, the film had grossed around €2.2 million at the Spanish box office.[20] In December of that year, it was invited to the 28th Kolkata International Film Festival and was screened there on 17 December 2022.[21]
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Reception
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Critical reception
According to the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Alcarràs has a 93% approval rating based on 59 reviews from critics, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The critical consensus on the website reads: "While it may lack a narrative punch, Alcarràs captures this rural world and its heritage with a gripping sense of nostalgia for things forever gone."[22] On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film holds a score of 85 out of 100 based on 19 reviews, indicating “universal acclaim.”[23]
Reviewing the film for The Daily Telegraph, Tim Robey rated the film 5 out of 5 stars, saying that the film "manages a light, improvisatory mastery, an immaculate hold on tone, and a grave yet sunlit tableau of an ending, with each one of these faces turned in collective mourning, that I'll never forget".[24] Fionnuala Halligan of ScreenDaily wrote that Alcarràs constitutes a "profoundly authentic and moving contemplation of the fragility of family, and, again, childhood" and has "all the hallmarks of a very specific film with emotionally wide appeal, a thoughtful essay which can also rattle and hum".[6]
Guy Lodge of Variety wrote that Alcarràs confirmed "the strength and consistency of Simón's directorial voice" after Summer 1993, also writing that it "balances a bristling political conscience against its tenderly observed domestic drama".[25] Writing for Little White Lies, Caitlin Quinlan said that the film "strikes a deft balance between idyllic reminiscence and melancholy for a cherished place", while also "delivering a poignant tale about the impact of industrial development on agriculture".[26] Sergi Sánchez of Fotogramas wrote that Simón gets to "translate into images what many neorealist filmmakers pursued unceasingly," which is "truth, this time of a changing space and time, which appeals to the collective without losing the thread of the individual".[27]
In August 2022, Alcarràs was announced as one of three films shortlisted by the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain to be the Spanish submission to the 95th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film alongside Rodrigo Sorogoyen's The Beasts and Alauda Ruiz de Azúa's Lullaby.[28] Alcarràs ultimately was then official submission for the category.[4]
Top ten lists
The film appeared on a number of critics' top ten lists of the best European films of 2022:
In addition, it also appeared on top ten lists of the best Spanish films of 2022:
- 1st — El Periódico de Catalunya (critics)[30]
- 1st — El Cultural (Carlos Heredero)[31]
- 1st — El Cultural (Begoña Donat)[31]
- 1st — El Cultural (Juan Sardá)[31]
- 1st — El Español ('Series&más' critics)[32]
- 1st — El Confidencial (Marta Medina)[33]
- 1st — Cadena SER ('El cine en la SER' critics)[34]
- 1st — Cadena SER (Pepa Blanes)[34]
- 1st — Cadena SER (Jose M. Romero)[34]
- 1st — El Mundo (Luis Martínez)[35]
- 1st — Vanity Fair (Juan Sanguino & Paloma Rando)[36]
- 2nd — El Cultural (Javier Yuste)[31]
- 5th — El Cultural (Manu Yáñez)[31]
- 5th — Cadena SER (Elio Castro)[34]
- 6th — El Cultural (Mariona Burrull)[31]
- 10th — ABC (Oti Rodríguez Marchante)[37]
Accolades
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See also
References
External links
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