The last few weeks in the United States have lent resonance to a current in international films that’s been growing over the past couple of years – stories of young women trying to find places for themselves in environments that afford them little or no agency in their own lives. These films do not have anything to do with Roe v. Wade. They are inspired by the Cannes period drama. “Corsage”A royal woman is struggling under societal and physical constraints to watch the disturbing Costa Rican film “Clara Sola”(which puts a mystical spin to the awakening female power) The movies can feel timely for viewers who see their boundaries shrinking.
First-time Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic’s “Murina,” which won the Camera d’Or as the best first film at Cannes in 2021 and comes to U.S. theaters in July, is a father-daughter conflict that plays in a shiny and upscale setting. In recent years, young female directors from the Balkan states have made a string of impressive films haunted by the wars that consumed that region in the 1990s — among them, Blerta Zeqiri’s “The Marriage,” Antoneta Kastrati’s “Zana” and Jasmila Zbanic’s “Quo Vadis, Aida?” — but Kusijanovi stays away from the reverberations of those conflicts; she’s more concerned with the wars within the family.
Julija (Gracija Filipovic) is a teenage girl who lives on an idyllic coastline where her father (Leon Lucev) owns land that he’s hoping to sell to Javier (Cliff Curtis), a wealthy former employer and sometime friend. If Javier buys the land, it’ll be the big score that allows the family to move to Zagreb – but any potential stumble could be catastrophic. Her father is a domineer and Julija is under immense stress due to the imminent sale. Nela Curcic, Julija’s mother, barks orders at Julija; mom follows his lead and makes excuses.
“He needs this,” Nela says. “If he gets this deal, he’ll be calmer.”
“If he gets money, he’ll beworse,”Julija says that her father has a constant look of sullen irritation on his face, which seems completely justified.
Julija finds the urban Javier to be Julija’s dad: open-minded, encouraging her to leave her life of restriction, supportive and not dismissive. It isn’t that simple, of course, and every character has his or her turn to be the guilty party in this round-robin warfare that can get exhausting and repetitive.
But “Murina” also gives Filipovic room to shine as Julija, and it uses the blue ocean and sun-dappled shores to paint a vivid picture of a troubled paradise, with a lot of help from the dreamy compositions of cinematographer Hélène Louvart.
The film also gives its heroine a pair of dramatic signposts on her travels — the opening one-shot from beneath the surface of the ocean looking up toward the sky, the final one-shot from far above looking down at the surface. Do the sea offers Julija an escape? Or is it a nice distraction until she returns to her darker life on land? Kusijanovic isn’t interested in tipping her hand as this coming-of-age story turns into one more cinematic journey by a young woman through an inhospitable world.
“Murina”Kino Lorber is opening its doors in New York and Los Angeles on 7/7.
This review was taken from an article that ran on “Murina”The film premiered at Cannes in July 2021.