Los extraterrestres vinieron a través del mar
2021 · 11m · España
Directed by Alex Kumar
Tones: contemplative, tender
Mei is a Chinese girl who gives massages on the beach during the hot Barcelona summer; Ishwar is a Nepalese boy who sells beers on the beach. They live in the same building but do not know each other; little by little they begin to see each other, until they end up making a curious exchange.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A beach romance between migrant workers sounds like the setup for every Sundance crowd-pleaser, but Kumar resists it—the 'curious exchange' isn't a confession or a kiss, it's something weirder and more oblique, which is why it actually lands.
The film locates itself squarely in the tradition of contemplative European cinema (Koreeda's influence is palpable), and its restraint in staging—the non-encounters before encounter—suggests a director conscious of form as meaning.
The entire film pivots on the decision to keep Mei and Ishwar physically separated until the edit permits their gazes to cross; that single compositional choice transforms what could've been sentimental into something genuinely tender and earned.