Undertow

Miguel lives in a fishing village on the Peruvian coast. His wife Mariela is pregnant and the birth is near. The village is small; everyone knows everyone, the church is at the centre and the customs are firm. Miguel is in a relationship: Santiago is a painter who came to the village later and the two meet in secret. Santiago is shut out in the village. One day he drowns at sea. His body is not found. Then Miguel starts seeing him. Santiago stands beside him, speaks, and only Miguel can see him. By the village's custom a soul cannot leave until the funeral rite is performed. Javier Fuentes-León writes and directs. Cristian Mercado plays Miguel and Manolo Cardona plays Santiago. It is a Peruvian, Colombian, French and German co-production. The film won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival and was submitted as Peru's entry for the Oscar. The narrative uses the supernatural not as an instrument of horror but as a term of grace; Miguel has to decide and the time is running. The matter it treats is disclosure; the film builds it as a question of a funeral rather than of identity. The coastal village's funeral custom is at its centre and the rite carries the whole mechanism. The wife's position is the second axis and the film gives her a decision of her own. The sea and the shore work inside the narrative. Its limit is pace; the narrative is slow and repeats in its middle stretch. Who it is for: viewers who like Latin American cinema and drama on a fantastic ground. Who it is not for: it is slow, the mixture of genres is not for everyone, and the ending sad.