Secaderos

A psychedelic fable about empty Spain with a certain inventiveness, but the final result is frustrating, because few important conclusions take place. The landscape of a rural area is filled with mysterious tobacco barns. Three generations spend the summer uncovering the secrets of these structures in a little town that is a childhood playground, a rebel teenager, and an elder's memory.

Evocative but a little bit boring picture stars non-professional actors, here there are no artifices, dramas, calculated set pieces or condescending looks, but if there is an extreme fantasy represented with a showy giant figure that enchants some children; furthermore, it possesses an aura of nostalgia, at times. The cast was made up of the inhabitants from the region and everything is articulated around the roots of a way of life, to a place, to a family life that lives from cultivating the tobacco. Rocío Mesa does not achieve a captivating work, but she does achieve something meritorious in her proposal so loaded with reality, humility and naturalism, which is a space for the unreal, the allegorical and supernatural to coexist in it . We see the confluence of generations, adolescents, grandparents, marriages with debts, children, conflicts in an ordinary day-to-day struggle to get ahead. It shows open spaces, the sun , summer, children's games, family gatherings, country sounds, rows of fruit trees, peach picking and anything else . This is also a marvelous ode to childhood plenty of innocence , friendship , curiosity and innocence . Director Rocio Mesa shows these important and universal values through country people's mind. It is an acceptable picture of educational content about countryside life , including some little enjoyable messages . Being shot on gorgeous locations from Granada. What I liked the most is the imaginative giant monster that bears resemblance to the Chicken Caponata from the children's series ¨Barrio Sesamo¨ (Sesame Street) with the special effects made by DDT led by David Martí , the Oscar-winning company that won an Oscar for Pan's Labyrinth and other hits as La niña de la comunión, La piel que habito, Dagon, The Body, Rec saga, among others.

This follows the recent trend of current Spanish cinema to make naturalistic films, mostly focused on the rural environment, a calm but effective cinema, in the view of the contemporary Spanish cinema, such as: 'Alcarràs', 'Suro', 'El agua', 'Verano 93' .

The film was originally directed by Rocio Mesa, but it results to be slow, boring and tiring. With clear and simple metaphors, but highly effective , the director Rocio has composed a very free and recondite work in which there are equally passages that seem like a documentary as well as sequences that border on video creation. It got several nominations and prizes at national and international festivals, such as: San Sebastián International Film Festival ; 2022 winner Dunia Ayaso Award Rocio Mesa; 2023 ASECAN, Nominado AISGE Award Award, Best Original Score: Paloma Peñarrubia , Best Female Performance: Ada Mar Lupiáñez; Días de Cine Awards 2024 Award Rocio Mesa and SXSW Film Festival Austin, Texas, USA.

Secaderos vividly portrays life in the tobacco country of Granada, Spain, focusing on the experience and emotions of women of different ages: a young girl who experiences it as a summer idyll, a teenager who longs to break free of the farm's responsibilities and limitations, and several adults facing the potential loss of land they have poured their lives into due to inadequate precipitation, uninterested children, and economic pressures. The film's fly-on-the-wall style observes its characters' everyday activities and interactions naturalistically, giving the viewer a feeling for what life was or is probably really like in this part of Granada. And the conflicts inherent in the situation are depicted poignantly and with empathy for each character and their sometimes contrasting desires.

The land itself is anthropomorphized as a leafy "monster" that sort of looks like something out of The Neverending Story and interacts with several characters (especially the girl visiting from Madrid) which worked alright, although I'm not sure the story needed it. The creature's presence is most effective at showing the growing attachment to the farm of the girl visiting from Madrid.

While the portrayal of life on the tobacco farms feels authentic and moving, I found the film's resolution (or lack thereof) to be less than satisfying. There is certainly something realistic in its somewhat ambiguous ending, but the lack of a clear position or message keeps Secaderos from making as strong of an impression as it otherwise might have. In any case, the film is a promising debut for its director, Rocio Mesa, and it will be interesting to see what she does in the future.