Notes on a Summer

In the middle of August, it's not just the heat in Madrid that is oppressive. Marta's (Katia Borlado) doctoral thesis should also have been wrapped up by now, as her university position ends in six months' time. But the young Madrileña prefers to put off solving her problems until the fall. For now, Marta has a semester break in her former hometown on the coast, which means she can distance herself from her deadlocked relationship with Leo (Antoino Araque). Because of his full-time job, Leo can't travel for so long - but when it comes to saying goodbye, he offers little more than clinging declarations of love or helpless silence. Love has run out of steam. But the sky over the Atlantic coast of Asturias is a promising blue when Marta meets her ex-boyfriend Pablo (Álvaro Quintana) in the province. The two passionately rekindle their past relationship... “Problems are solved in September. There are no problems in August!” That's what is said during Marta's walks on the beach with a friend. What is going on inside her, torn between passion and protection, seems as intangible to us viewers as it does to the young woman herself. When you watch director Diego Llorente's small but wonderfully atmospheric summer film, the moody romantic dramas of Éric Rohmer inevitably come to mind. And yet Llorente succeeds in lending something very contemporary to the seemingly carefree instantaneity. Economic worries creep in with skillful casualness as a picture of the mood in Spain after the financial crisis. Llorente, who was born in Asturias himself, dresses his story in sun-drenched images. The events surrounding his restless characters remain fragmentary, but always leave enough space for your own thoughts, interpretations and remembered experiences. “Bodies dance and touch each other under water, hands dance in the air at the wedding that Marta and Leo, who arrives unexpectedly early, attend, and the cider tastes delicious in the lively square in the small town in the province of Asturias. The sex between Marta and Pablo is also passionate and is staged in an explicitly sensitive way that is reminiscent of the series “Normal People” about a young couple who can neither be with nor without each other. As the title suggests, Llorente's film is not a full-blown drama, but rather shines a spotlight on interpersonal experiences. “Notes on a Summer” is a film of glances and gestures that tell of longings and fears, above all of Marta's torn between her regular life with Leo in Madrid and the promising but seemingly uncertain adventure with Pablo. “We'll be poor but happy,” he entices his ex. There are no easy answers. Provincial home or city? An academic career or a life with beloved friends? Leo or Pablo? These are the big questions that this likeable movie deals with. At the very end, while assembling furniture, Marta formulates what is not only her problem with the complicated instructions: “I'm lost!” (Jens Balkenborg, at: www.epd-film.de)