Després de la pluja

An odd workout in an œuvre that, for all its thematic and visual consistency, is made up of exceptions more than rules, departures and explorations rather than clear-cut paths and certainties. Maybe it's simply a look at things from a somewhat unexpected vantage point. After the Rain - based on a 1993 piece by Sergi Belbel - is Villaronga's first feature set primarily in an unheimlich urban and eerily contemporary universe. In an up-scale office high-rise, smack in a city where it hasn't rained for two years, a man jumps to his death. What follows is a multi-character fresco showing a world where things such as these happen. Which sounds more dour than After the Rain actually is. The tone of this piece for ten ordinarily depressed souls is often frantic, cheeky, slightly crazy, somewhat screwball(sy) and finally even magical.