A sad orphan, beautifully played
A6-year-old girl, orphaned after her mother’s death, is taken in by her aunt and uncle and their young daughter. The adjustment is a difficult one, but over time a new family unit forms.
That’s all there is, plotwise, to “Summer 1993,” but hardly all there is. It’s a film entirely lacking in pomp, but there’s a certain bravado in its delicate reservation. A tender and spare meditation
on family unfurls in the stillness of a sleepy, sun-soaked Spanish summer.
Laia Artigas is a marvel as Frida, the young girl sent from Barcelona to live with her new family in the Spanish countryside. There’s local tittering over her mother, and sidelong glances at Frida when she enters a room. Women call her “poor little thing” while she’s standing right there. A skinned knee causes a playground panic, and mothers swoop in to protect their kids from her blood.
The film never utters the word, but given the year and the general atmosphere of fear, the audience is given just enough to deduce the cause of Frida’s mother’s death. The film isn’t being coy; it’s showing us the world through Frida’s eyes, and the adults are careful that Frida not fully know.
The camera lingers on her, often at eye level, as she explores her new home with a child’s unmasked curiosity, eating plums straight off the tree and plucking chicken eggs out of the coop. Playtime with her cousin Anna (Paula Robles) sometimes turns casually cruel, inquisitiveness giving way to selfishness and petulance. It’s so naturalistic, it feels as if the camera were left rolling with the actors unaware and simply caught them in the act of childhood.
Those hairpin turns in mood lead to moments of quiet heartbreak: Frida pretending to call her mother on the phone, leaving a pilfered pack of cigarettes at the feet of the Virgin Mary to give to her mother when she gets to heaven. “Summer 1993” is never gaudy in its grief, which makes its expression all the more devastating.
Director Carla Simón has crafted a gem in “Summer 1993,” rich with authenticity and assured in craft.