Atlántida (Atlantida)

Regie: Inés María Barrionuevo

Argentina / France 2014, 78 Min, Spanish

A sweltering summer’s day in 1987. In a small rural town in Argentina, everyone is longing for rain. Lucia swims laps at the pool early in the morning. Later on she sweats over her books at the kitchen table. She is studying hard because she’s determined to go to university in Buenos Aires. Meanwhile, her sister lies in bed with her leg in plaster, bored to death. The other teenagers sit out the heat at the pool, messing around. Girls chat about the boys, and vice versa. Who snogged who yesterday? But there are some who aren’t interested in any of that, like Andrés, a passionate beekeeper, or Ana, who likes reading books. At one point, Lucia has had enough of her annoying sister and goes out into the countryside with Ana. Here the two girls are left to their own devices. None of the shots in this film are quite like any you’ve seen before. Adults barely put in an appearance. The young people drift along, propelled by their own desires, but they don’t really know how to handle them. Sometimes they get up to some pretty loopy things; the talk is often about disasters and death. Some of them just want to get away. And with the night comes the rain they’ve all been waiting for.