Strange River
Drama Catalan
One summer, Dídac travels by bike along the Danube with his family, starting where the river first emerges in Germany. As they journey downstream, he begins seeing a mysterious boy, Alexander, who appears and disappears in the water. Dídac feels himself changing, drawn toward Alexander and away from his brother Biel. Their mother, Monika, who once took the same trip as a teenager, drifts into memories of a past summer love. When she sees Dídac and Alexander together, she encourages them to continue the journey alone. But as twilight falls, Dídac begins to question who Alexander truly is.
| Cast: | Nausicaa Bonnín, Jordi Oriol, Jan Monter, Bernat Solé, Francesco Wenz, Roc Colell, Sergi Ferrer Pedrazo, |
|---|---|
| Director: | Jaume Claret Muxart |
| Writer: | Jaume Claret Muxart, Meritxell Colell Aparicio |
| Editor: | Maria Castan de Manuel, Meritxell Colell Aparicio |
| Camera: | Pablo Paloma |
All Guild Reviews of "Strange River"
Queer Teen Awakening Redrawn With Lush Enigma in One of the Year’s Best Films
A disintegrating Catalan family goes for a final trip along the Danube River in Jaume Claret Muxart’s seductive drama that guards its secrets.
Strange River is a rare gift of a film. This might be the closest cinema has come to approximating the unique headrush of queer teenage discovery. In his feature debut, Catalan writer-director Jaume Claret Muxart goes spare on dialogue and evokes patterns of thought, imaginative vision and tender melancholy. There’s a deep fragility so central to puberty which the director has precisely gauged. It’s that phase when feelings and fancies can shape up to be seismic. Everything feels bottomless, churning. The film maps this intensity against a drifting slipstream of recognition, denial and growth. Pain is inescapable as the callow heart seeks to scamper away and forge its own detour. Strange River builds an emotional, internal space by its own dream logic and lures you in without presupposing cues or needless connective filaments. Here’s a filmmaker inviting you to be one with his work’s peculiar, subliminal impulses even while it constantly evades a firm grasp.
Latest Reviews
