Oriol
is an architect, but he is terrible at rebuilding broken things, like his
family. At least he is carrying on just
fine. Not only has he forgotten the
accident that killed his youngest daughter, he has blotted out all memory of
little Celia. It might sound like the
set-up for a psychological drama, but traditional narrative form is not
something Jaime Rosales gets hung up on with his pseudo-experimental The Dream and the Silence (trailer here), which screens during
the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 2012 Spanish Cinema Now.
Oriol
and Yolanda are two very unexceptional parents with two perfectly presentable
daughters, Alba and Celia. That all
changes on the fateful day Oriol drives Celia back from her grandparents’ home. The architect’s mental block might help him deal
with the situation, but it makes matters far worse for Yolanda, who as a result
feels added pressure to keep Celia’s memory alive. As her emotions fray, Oriol becomes more
distant and disengaged in family life.
From time to time, the audience witnesses extreme situations that could
have been the stuff of genre cinema, but are presented by Rosales in a diffuse,
roundabout manner instead.
Take
a deep breath before walking into Dream,
because it is described by the sympathetic as “demanding.” Like high-end mumblecore, Rosales employs a
highly improvisational approach with mostly nonprofessional cast. While it sometimes takes a while to tease out
what is going on in a given situation, viewers will get a keen sense of the
personalities that make up this family.
Jaume Terradas is especially powerful as the grandfather who was one of
the last people to see Celia alive. When
bickering with his wife and later mourning a grandchild, his weathered face
commands the screen.
At
times though, Rosales appears to be fighting his actors with his stylistic
excesses. Granted, he frames some striking tableaux, but they lose some of
their potency when held too long. As for
the Godardian jump-cuts, they are an unnecessary distraction. Still, Óscar Durán’s black-and-white
cinematography is unusually powerful, better described as stark rather than
beautiful. For added intellectual heft,
the film is bookended by scenes of work by Miguel Barcelo (seen in The Double Steps) taking shape on his canvas.
