Alamar (To The Sea)

Alamar is not your conventional drama or documentary, but a beautiful hybrid piece of cinema that will leave you tender and serene. Taking a real life father and son duo, director Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio sets them up with a narrative context; the son (Natan) is moving to Italy with his mother. But before he leaves, he is to spend time with his father (Jorge) and grandfather in a small fishing community on the Mexican-Caribbean coast. There, in a small house on stilts surrounded by water, the drama evolves spontaneously. In fishing, eating and interacting with the wild surrounds, life is consumed by the simplest of activities; we sense the fragility of the ecosystem and as humans, how gentle we must be ensure its livelihood.

After the film, Gonzalez-Rubio talked about the purity of this particular environment and way of life. We all search for this purity, he said, but if we all take a piece of it, in the end we destroy it. It is disturbing to think of the recent oil spill as is makes it's way to these pristine waters, and with continued touristic development, the ecosystem becomes more and more endangered. These ideas are by no means explicit in Alamar, but sewn into the fragile and tender relationship between Natan and Jorge. Jorge is a mystical and placid creature; 'despacio' meaning 'slowly' is the word he lives by. Natan, like most children, is spontaneous and inquisitive. Together, they embody intimacy and discovery, surrounded by the miracles of everyday life. Although this unique father and son connection is so remote from the Western world, I hope it resonates across all urban-dwelling audiences. Alamar reminded me a lot of someone close, but for whatever reason, it put me back in my skin. If it weren't for festivals, films such as this gem would struggle to make it to the big screen. So we are lucky.