Verano de Goliat

His real name is Oscar, but his friends call him Goliath because he is alleged to have killed his girlfriend. That is what Oscar and his little brother Nico tell an interviewer offscreen at the start of Summer of Goliath. This fifth film by Nicolás Pereda starts as a documentary, only later to change into a feature film when we see the housewife Teresa trudge across a field with a heavy suitcase. She has just been deserted by her husband, Eduardo.

With an intriguing mixture of fiction and documentary, Pereda sketches a picture of a small rural town where it seems fairly common for husbands to desert their families (often to go and work in the United States), where there is little work and where soldiers stroll around and combat boredom by intimidating people. It’s a community where the outcast Oscar and a lonely Teresa have difficulty keeping their heads above water.

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