In the Summers
In the Summers
Reiterating a span of two decades, the story of Alessandra Lacorazza’s ‘In the Summers is divided into four chapters and revolves around two sisters’ visits to their dysfunctional father as he struggles between the anger of his children and his weaker self, over the years, in Las Cruces New Mexico, which fundamentally changes their childhood memories devoid from this father’s extremes to time. The world of glorious folders, where every second carries a dense narrative of heightened emotion, moral conflicts and passionate actors on all fronts, is nothing more than a drive… But Lacorazza, a debut filmmaker with a warmth ichor running in a vein of the first tempo by Wei’s familial screenwriting, is more conciliating than that — the most swelling is often in slight pauses and the most gripping manifestation of the main narrative gimmick is how, as the sisters are gradually matured, different actresses are cast for each pair, each gentle emotional build up courtesy of the last, is achieved disarmingly devoid of any monomania. Through Lacorazza’s film, it’s not as much the individual episodes from childhood that make for the family memories, it’s the very additional accumulation of those episodes; that’s not the real-time moment but the overall state of all three leading characters which in their case isn’t the repeated gain but the summation of the self. It shows how those-hardly happy families in so distant and small periods of time contain the ways in which firstly, we happen to be together and later on after some time, figure out that those small but precious events contribute to form a rough draft of who we really are and what do we feel that we need to explore as adults now.
VICENTE—revealed with a steely but seething control by Puerto Rican rapper René “Residente” Pérez Joglar in the character’s debut is a stormy figure for his daughters Violeta (Dreya Renae Castillo) and Eva (Luciana Quinonez) from early childhood. His ex-wife, who himself still lives in California, is estranged from their father, but he has once again settled into his childhood home— so vividly shot by director of photography Alejandro Mejia, showing this desert mesa in tender wistful colours before turning chilly and harsher halfway through— and has started engaging in some unhealthy coping mechanisms that we are led to suspect are responsible for the collapse of the marriage.
Paternal urge—His exuberance is evident when he retrieves his daughters from outside the airport and transports them to the adobe house that Vicente inherited from his mother, and which is out of bounds for the children all the time. Even when they are inside their house’s pool one can see sensitivity when playing with girls, even when they know that Vicente will have fun by making love to his daughters, when they actually do not understand what fun exactly means. Although Edith Vicente’s daughters are unbothered by his presence, he still dreams of them in all their exasperation even as he cherishes his daughters. From this very first chapter, it’s possible to identify early signs of trouble with the help of a cigarette hanging from Vicente’s ear and the telling evidence of too much alcohol usage.
This, however, cannot be attributed to the difficult-softening of the exterior. Indeed, there are moments during the trip when Vicente’s temper, no matter how dormant it may seem, erupts once more and with very little warning, than instead veering off course, he simply begins making a mockery of the whole thing. What we see: Violeta, still in the backseat unbelted and vigilant as Vicente almost crashes the car, soon realizes this was a flawed judgment: she shouldn’t have trusted him to bring them safely back home. Violeta is heard to whisper to herself a more or less familiar situation, picturing a child’s psyche, quietly muttering “I am not going to let it happen again”.
Although small and insignificant it is one of the many such moments that summer followed by the changes in the eyes of the daughters of Vicente regarding their father and more importantly the fartherism regarding them. Lacorazza is not interested in the classic showdowns of parents with children – although there are a couple of episodes when dangerous tension between Vicente and Violeta becomes so high that physical force is necessary and these episodes must be given their due weight – but rather in the calm, precise interplay of sequences that depict how her characters present themselves to each other, all of them serious and saucy and trying in their own way, not so much for something better but to recreate a little of the old sparkle moments of happiness.
But each of the chapters of the story is divided by still life paintings reminiscent of paintings of Dutch Vanitas, family portraits in an altar or while surrounded by other memento mori which even with upbeat Latin music in the background still bring to attention the fast moving time which spares no thought as to our best of intentions. The next time the kids come to their father, they have changed – not in physical looks – but on the inside in emotional yearning, Eva (newly interpreted by Allison Salinas) a young daughter yearning affection from her forbidding parent Gustavo, Violeta (Kimaya Thais Limón) the eldest sibling, knowing better and is cautious of the father. Violeta has herself cut her hair short to avoid formation with Vicente except for the local bartender Carmen whom Vicente’s childhood friend who comes in wherever the girls require help. She also has a Matsuyama resident named Camila (Gabriella Elizabeth Surodjawan) who occasionally receives math tuition from her father in Los Cruces. “She’s still young,” quarrels Vicente ‘She’s exactly like her mom’, – this does not stop Eva İçin Standing. And I need to make sure he acknowledges that she is valuable on her own and deserving of his attention.
As for Vicente, he must be coming to terms in dealing with what Violeta knows now as alcohol use disorder and still has episodes of anger management that tends to push her away especially in her journey of self-discovery tinctured with implications of queerness that she appears to have more control over than Vicente would allow.
During that summer, as his once beautiful residences crumbled around him and the pool got more and more filled up with dirt and leaves, Vicente bears in mind how he dwells in the rubbles of his life, and how the Andean plateau of Las Cruces is also left hanging one day. Soaking humid even into the day, Erbidae Ester, as the girls shall refer to her, left them in the underpass that day watching. It was a bum down day allowing the kids to go wild, truly. Three year long dead and clearly decayed.
End of family visit, ending in a visit that completely turns the traumatic situation on Vicente’s shoulders, Eva goes back the following summer all by herself only to discover that her father Leslie Grace and his new wife who has birthed them have moved. The fact that Violeta remains locked up in a house in California makes Vicente so tensed that he takes Eva as a consolation. She has a long and lonely wait to fill in for three months of insanity. At the pub, during the game, looking at Eva nervously who had ‘studied her father’s billiard rituals’ is aware of the fact that instead of being praised for victory, one gets the opposite. So much so that this n m g in as Salinas carries up this middle section of ‘In the Summers’ when teenage Eva was complex with expressive eyes as she slowly grew hopes with Vicente’s occasional wholesomeness and tears at his cruel rejection.
Years later, towards the last chapter of the movie, Violeta Lío Mehiel and Eva Sasha Calle come home to Las Cruces as adults. A home that they do not want to go back to as basking in childish dreams of going back to America is no longer there. Instead, father is not greeted with hugs and love, they only make a visit to him at the request of his grave.
Violeta, who has since undergone a transition, is getting ready for graduate school in September. Eva, a heavy smoker wearing dark sunglasses, is dealing with her depression but not effective as a nursing care provider, some from last summer, some not all of which is distance that Vicente has no hope of overcoming. Though excruciating, this is not spiteful, the way in which Lacorazza manages to communicate to the reader the boundaries these two have built around themselves and the discomforting relationship of contempt and pity middle between them. Aside from how Lacorazza does take account of all events that have transpired during their years apart, it is clear to her that where they have reached now is no more climactic rows expect reconciliation that healing even the soulful ache: simply, skinning wounds and pondering how they ended there and why might be wandering on the old paths with different understanding of its meaning and relevance.
Both Mehiel and Calle are outstanding actors who understand and portray the emotional stresses of the characters and the love between them well. But the idea of emotional “In the Summers” has been built this way over time which is why most of the younger actors are focused on elevating the older ones all of whom despite their age play their roles beautifully. Collectively, they create something astonishing: a real experience of a daughter and father’s relationship being pulled apart moment by moment.
In this respect, the aspect of his portrayal of Joglar, which encompasses every facet of a man deeply devoted to his daughters and their safety, yet lets his temper ruin things at the most unfortunate of moments, is perhaps the most tragic one. It is only towards the end of the film that he expresses this sentiment where he says “You guys did okay without me” – it is both factual and an admission of failure – timely in his case as he makes these plain statements.
“In the Summers” has won two of them: the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival. The film is very much sensitive to the backdrop of the film. Over a period of time, Lacorazza manages to dawdle in the vistas of Las Cruces, where the stars lit up telling an open ended story and the contours of mountains echoing the twist and turns of characters lying below. At the time when grown up Violeta and Eva are on Vicente’s side as he traverses through breathtaking white sand dunes holding his now teenage daughter (Indigo Montez) barely noticing her as she is being considerately raised by him, it is weird how time passes by too quickly and then comes to a halt, like the hour glass – at least for some time, and in the most impossible of ways, it turns over. With all the tired bafflement and understanding of somebody who has, or at a minimum, survived this type of tale, or some similar, Lacorazza conveys you can practically never start anew. But you come into whatever happens next who you were, where you’ve been and what it taught you, and not just for what it taught you, and you go on.
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- Genre: Drama
- Country: United States
- Director: Alessandra Lacorazza
- Cast: Residente, Sasha Calle, Lio Mehiel, Dreya Castillo, Luciana Elisa Quinonez, Kimaya Thais, Allison Salinas
