Rail Road Crossing

Who in Europe still has the courage to make a 35mm feature film for a budget of 30,000 euro? The young film maker Pere Vilà from the Catalan town of Girona proves that it is possible if you know what you want, have a good script and can shoot close to home.
Like a ‘disorientated Odysseus’ is how the makers describe their protagonist Marc. He’s about 20 and has just successfully completed his school education and now has to think what he’s going to do – and that still comes as a an unpleasant surprise. Marc finally moves in with his grandma. In the seaside resort where she lives, he accepts one of those strange jobs that apparently can only be found by the Mediterranean in high season.
Marc seems barely aware of the people and the things around him. Only his grandma seems to get through to him somehow. When she suddenly dies, circumstances force Marc to make a decision.
Vilà is among those film makers who are interested in what the characters don’t say, in the meaning of what we don’t get to see. Visibly inspired by the cinema of Tsai or Angelopoulos, Vilà’s intermittent film is made up of beautiful, long scenes that make us feel the lack of consciousness so characteristic of adolescents. Vilà has made an original début, not in the least thanks to his use of the scorching of alienating heat of summer behind the scenes of the tourist industry. (GT)

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