To the Sea

Pedro González-Rubio's 2010 Mexican film stands between fiction and documentary. Natan, five years old, is about to move to Rome with his mother, and before he goes his father Jorge takes him to the Chinchorro reef off the Mexican coast. For a few weeks father, son and grandfather live in a wooden hut over the water, fishing, mending nets and watching what is beneath the surface. The film writes no script; the events come from the real days of a real family and the people play themselves. Its subject is a way of living being handed to a child and the uncertainty of how much of it will remain. The underwater footage and the silence make up its texture. It won the grand prize in Rotterdam. Who it's for: viewers who like slow, observational film. Who it's not for: anyone expecting incident and tension; this is almost a record of daily life.