Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Alamar

by Drew Martin
I watched a beautiful film the other day called Alamar, which documents the time a five year old boy spends with his Mexican father in a sea world around Banco Chinchorro, the largest coral reef in Mexico, before he returns to live with his Italian mother in Rome. There is a lot of sunshine, crystal clear water, fresh fish, flawless tan skin, and carefree days.

The story is real; the “characters” play themselves, but the movie exceeds the boundaries of documentary filmmaking. This is a film about the stages of man in a timeless world.


I experienced the movie not as a romantic view of a fisherman’s life in a pristine environment, but as a kind of future recollection of the boy’s memory of the time. We witness scenes that are innocent without being sentimental, and the beauty of the location is never gratuitously framed; we are immersed in it.