‘El Agua’ Review: After the Flood, the Legends

In the southeastern Spanish village the place the director Elena López Riera grew up — and the place her debut function, “El Agua,” is about — water is each a boon and a curse. This dry area doesn’t get sufficient rain for its lemon and orange crops, however when it does pour, there are often devastating floods. And as is commonly the case with forces we can not management or perceive, it’s the village’s ladies who’re blamed for nature’s caprices.

In “El Agua,” aquatic myths ensnare the teenage goals of 17-year-old Ana (Luna Pamies). In a collection of documentary interviews interspersed all through the movie, locals relate the parable of the ladies who’ve water “inside them,” who disappear each time a flood arrives. Then there’s the curse that supposedly afflicts Ana, her mom (Nieve de Medina) and her grandmother (Bárbara Lennie), three fiercely impartial ladies who dwell collectively. Ana yearns to go away the stifling village and finds hope within the mysterious José (Alberto Olmo), who claims to have returned to the village after a visit overseas.

The film weaves collectively a number of threads, of which Ana’s coming-of-age is the weakest: Her adolescent rebellions and her fling with José play out slightly predictably, by no means fairly evoking the lust or portent that the movie’s folklore suggests. But “El Agua” succeeds as a portrait of the village’s traditions, each handbook and cultural, dropped at life by a largely nonprofessional solid (together with Pamies, a hanging discovery). Scenes involving pigeon races, farmers working the land with their arms, and girls caring for and grooming one another all glow with a tactile sense of naturalism, which makes the documentary footage of floods that closes the movie all of the extra gutting.

El Agua
Not rated. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters.