Murina review – smouldering intensity, fragile manhood and young beauty | Film
There’s a lot about emotional stress and teenage craving and the semi-official sexiness of swimming costumes on this assured directorial debut from Croatian film-maker Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic, although I puzzled about some fantastically shot visible cliches.
Julija (Gracija Filipovic) is the teenage daughter of Ante (Leon Lucev), an aggressively insecure man whom she has to assist, diving underwater with him whereas he makes a dwelling on the rocky Adriatic shoreline spear-fishing moray eels (the “murina” of the title). She is fairly near her mum Nela (Danica Curcic) however in any other case unhappily proud and self-contained. Her father is jittery with pleasure as a result of his outdated pal Javi (Cliff Curtis) is coming to go to: a super-rich alpha male who could also be curious about shopping for a few of Ante’s land to show into a vacation resort. It’s one thing of an open secret that Javi was as soon as in love with Nela and could also be nonetheless, and he’s additionally a lot taken with Julija’s younger magnificence.
Ante realises at some acutely aware degree that adroitly protecting these emotions alive may assist shut the deal, but it surely’s a harmful recreation, and his personal fragile patriarchal manhood is at stake. As for Javi, does he fairly realise that the land Ante is attempting to promote him is on the island of Kornat, which locals contemplate blighted by the real-life tragedy of 2007 when 12 firefighters misplaced their lives there attempting to place out a blaze?
All that is acted with smouldering depth and authenticity, significantly by Filipovic, though it’s attainable to marvel if there’s something surprising to return within the third act, or if we are able to roughly guess the place it’s all heading. And likewise … dreamy-hallucinatory underwater sequences within the films have gotten over-familiar. At any price, there are some very persuasive performances, and wonderful cinematography by Hélène Louvart.
