Film Review: Summer 1993 (2018)
In this stunning Spanish-language drama, director Carla Simón tells the autobiographical story of a young girl who has lost both parents to HIV. The film starts with Frida (the fictionalised version of our director) watching on as her home in Barcelona gets emptied before she is taken to live with her aunt, uncle and cousin out in the countryside.
The film largely revolves around Frida and her younger cousin Anna (now more of a sister) played by Laia Artiges and Paula Robles respectively. Both children give performances beyond their years, performances so good they feel completely real. I know I raved on about the child acting in The Florida Project as being some of the best I've ever seen, the acting of our two leads in this film is just as good, and arguably, in Artiges' case, more complex. The camera spends a lot of time right in our protagonist's face and the way Artiges conveys the emotions bubbling beneath the surface, emotions her character Frida doesn't fully understand, is both masterful and heartbreaking. It's the kind of performance that could only have been brought about by a director who has experienced loss like this first hand.
The film is shot in a very tactile way, the camera actively moving about in a way not dissimilar to handy-cam footage at times, and even during the stiller moments there is notable movement, which again aids the film's very natural feel. The beautiful look of the film is helped by the fact it's set in the stunning Catalan countryside in a rather charming and picturesque house.
Summer 1993 is an incredibly nuanced film, the important plot points aren't necessarily large dramatic events, but small ones where you catch a glimpse of what a certain character is feeling beneath the brave face they are putting on the whole situation. The drama is subtle and never overplayed and the notable use of exclusively diagetic music helps create a hyper-realistic feel.
Plot-wise not all that much happens in Summer 1993, but that's not the point. The point isn't to show a resolution to the problem in some handy little steps, the world doesn't work like that, sometimes there are no solutions. The film just shows the effect such a trauma can have on a child and her extended family, something conveyed perfectly in this Spanish masterpiece.