Alcarràs review: A moving snapshot of a peach-growing family bound by tradition

Alcarràs opens with the youngest daughter of the family Iris (Ainet Jounou), and her twin cousins Pere and Pau (Joel Rovira and Isaac Rovira) playacting in the nearby discarded car, which is eventually pulled over by an excavator. It is a striking visual metaphor for what is yet to come for the Solé family. Soon the Solé family will come to know that Pinyol (Jacob Diarte), who actually owns the land, has gone ahead and decided to partner with an alternative energy company which will soon replace the peach trees with solar panels.

The ageing patriarch of the house, Rogelio (Josep Abad) has no papers to prove ownership of this land, and still innocently clings on to the old ways. “There is no contract. Old Pyniol gave me his word, just like his father to my father”, he says to his son Quimet (Jordi Pujol Dolcet), whose decades-long fieldwork has given rise to an inevitable backpain. His wife Dolors (Anna Otín), silently acknowledges and carries on to manage the household. Apart from Iris, their other two children Roger (Albert Bosch) and Mariona (Xènia Roset) are in their teenage years, aware of the mounting sense of grief and anger that causes friction in the household. Then there is Rogelio’s son-in-law Cisco (Carles Cabós) and his wife Nati (Montse Oró) who sneak up to Pinyol’s methods to secure their own future.

With so many characters bustling in and around the frame, Alcarràs draws in from the precautious bonds that tie the family together. Teaming with co-writer Arnau Vilaro, Simón’s assembles a cast of non-professional actors to build on the authenticity of the language and the mannerisms central to the premise. Her gaze is particularly adept at capturing the ways in which the members of the Solé household come together with their carefully interconnected needs and demands. Simón doesn’t provide a link to unlock the familial ties, and stealthily situates her audience right in the middle of things, providing little moments of observation and everyday interactions to know them. With each new scene, she remarkably captures the sights and sounds of a house that is close to an autumnal paradise. The inability to escape, combined with the socio-economic instability of their legacy is spelt out in so much as a look, in a pause between exchanges. The sudden decision of physical contact in the form of a slap arrives like a jolt. Although Alcarràs might have benefitted with a tighter narrative structure, Simon’s reliance on the ways in which the multigenerational family adapts to the loss of agency is fascinating to watch.

Notice how even as Rogelio grows quieter and more reserved as the film moves ahead, his eldest granddaughter Mariona resonates with his silent grief. Meanwhile, for Roger, it is about overcompensating for the crisis that lies ahead, trying as much as he can to help Quimet, but there’s only so much he can do. Or the scene in which Quimet wins a robust wine drinking competition, eliciting a cathartic joy in the face of inevitable crisis. There are so many moments in which Alcarràs pulls in the viewer towards such authentic emotional transparency. Yet, the real scene-stealing charm in this superb film arrives in the form of little Iris, whose beguiling acts of innocence and inquisitiveness uncannily reflect the woes of an older generation. In one particularly moving scene, she sings “Solid ground, beloved land,” infront of the family, and Simón shifts to capture the reaction of everyone present. It is a tender, delicately realized moment in a film that honours the legacy of the people, the places and the sights that has nourished the filmmaker with a sensitive and brave filmmaking voice.