Marina, 18, orphaned at a young age, must travel to Spain’s Atlantic coast to obtain a signature for a scholarship application from the paternal grandparents she has never met. She navigates a sea of new aunts, uncles, and cousins, uncertain whether she will be embraced or met with resistance. Stirring long-buried emotions, reviving tenderness, and uncovering unspoken wounds tied to the past, Marina pieces together the fragmented and often contradictory memories of the parents she barely remembers.
The Garden Cinema View:
As with her debut, Summer 1993, Carla Simón once again explores her past, and contends with her parents’ AIDS related deaths when she was very young. Romaría brings us to the Galician city of Vigo in the early 2000s, with Simón’s avatar Marina (Llúcia Garcia) tentatively negotiating uneasy first meetings with a variety of relatives, and probing at uncomfortable family secrets. A tapestry of competing histories slowly comes into focus, with sections shot on handheld DV lending Marina’s own subjective experience (and the recent period setting) a distinctive and nostalgic aesthetic. Romaría is also something of a tribute to Vigo itself, and the wild Atlantic coast. Smugglers coves, barren lighthouses, boatyards, and bold modernist architecture provide a distinctively nautical and slightly fantastical atmosphere. One that matches the film’s eventual flight into dreams.
