Tardes de sol noches de agua
2019 · 20m
Directed by Vicente D. Menzella
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, dark, melancholic
Lamia, a young woman with a child's mind, lives under her superstitious, controlling mother and develops an obsessive fixation on Conejo, a local man who exploits her childlike devotion.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise dangles exploitation and arrested development in your face, but Menzella refuses to sensationalize—he just lets the rot breathe, which is far weirder and more unsettling than the lurid version everyone expects.
A formally composed study in psychological entrapment that inherits from European art cinema's tradition of intimate domestic horror; the editing rhythm between mother's control and Conejo's predation builds a precise anatomy of vulnerability.
The entire film hinges on how Menzella photographs Lamia's face in moments of recognition—that split-second where childlike wonder curdles into something darker—and that single choice transforms what could be exploitative into something genuinely tragic and precise.