First thing which got my attention was the coarseness of the images. The film was recorded on 16 Millimetre. One has to get accustomed with it, because our habits of seeing became much too depending on the plain and sharp digital image. This “Coming of Age”-film is about a 13 years old girl who has to deal with the loss of her father, a fisherman who lost his life at the sea. Just alone like the documentary style and the fictive element are corresponding with each other, is fascinating. The rough sea landscape in the Spanish region Galicia with its rocks and cliffs reminds rather in Ireland than in a country so much loved by sun worshipper. The characters represent a community which is struggling for their economical surviving. The life of most of them relies on fishing. Even without the global warming, the people are exposed to unpredictable forces of nature. One can also sense that community which is endangered. Beside the struggling for their existence, grudge and resentment eats this community from inside. Sometimes it seems that the faces of the protagonists reflect the rough landscape, but mostly the film distinguishes its views on human civilization and on nature. Some images suggest a world which is much older than civilization. In some images of the sea, nature seems to recapture the world (and literally the film´s frame) completely.
Changing its views always between the two aspects, civilization and nature, the film changes as well often between its two aspects, the documentary-element in images of this Galician landscape with the incorruptible precision of the image making apparatus - and the fictive storytelling. Sica, the adolescent girl has not only to deal with the obligatory problems of a girl of her age. The mourning about the loss of her father and her forlorn wish that her father could have survived (his corps will never be found) makes it all worse. How she moves through this rough part of the visible world, in these seldom moments when nature and civilization come together, different images arise. Sica´s difficult journey of life evident in this landscape where rocks and wind makes every step burdensome.
It seems that this shattered community appears in Sica almost as indifferent as the nature. Beside being exposed to this nature, there are as well violent conflicts and mobbing between teenager. Sometimes the characters, especially Sica who is almost an outsider in her community, seem lost in this mighty landscape which is fascinating and frightening at the same time – a bit like in some paintings of Caspar David Friedrich. That means the natural landscape appears never as an idyll but mostly as an endless space where you can get lost. Sometimes a shot of the sea landscape or a constellation of clouds let arise images of almost psychedelic beauty. I remember one of these images from the sea landscape. From the off we hear a folksong. These are unforgettable moments of beauty mixed with uncanniness.
One can think of the long tradition of ethnographic cinema, one can think of Robert Flaherty – but one can also think of André Bazin´s thoughts about the complex relationship between cinema and reality, which are today as inspiring like they were more than 60 years ago. In many ways – Carla Subriana´s decision to record this film on 16 Millimetre is a very brave and sophisticated esthetic one. Like we learn a lot about a regional community depending on the traditional profession of fishing, we learn as well about an almost forgotten but great tradition of filmmaking. Sometimes, cinema has to go a step back while facing its future.
The images of this film Sica are never pleasing in a superficial way, every shot seems to be painstakingly developed. Sica is not only a fascinating uncompromising piece of a film, it reminds us as well in the endless diversity of filmmaking.
Rüdiger Tomczak
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