Alcarràs

6,5 / 10

Photovoltaics cannot feed families: The winning picture of the 2022 Berlinale inadvertently antagonizes renewable energies which is quite a statement for an international film festival. Carla Simón’s Alcarràs portrays the multi-generational Solé family which has to go through a transition process from the abandonment of their huge peach farm to the witnessing of the installation of solar panels on their land. During its too gently moving two hours of runtime, the viewer is thrown into the changing process by presenting the family as one endangered piece living in the Catalonian countryside, but it’s quite disorienting to learn each of the 12 family members and their respective feelings. However, the most noticeable member has to be Quimet (Jordi Pujol Dolcet) who refuses to switch to another profession after decades of passionate work on the farm. His ego and prioritization of peaches go beyond the wellbeing of the family and disregard the needs of the adolescents for which he receives a well-deserved wake-up call later on.

The most heartbreaking scenes are reserved for the slightly ill grandfather Rogelio (Josep Abad): A goodbye walk along the peach trees at night, an emotional song ending with the line “solid ground, beloved land” and performed with his grandchild Iris which concludes with his stoic acceptance of the inevitable end heading towards the beloved farm. Modern technology and expanding disconnects between the aspiring dancer Mariona, the secretly hemp-cultivating all-rounder Roger and the desperate farm defender Quimet Solé accelerate the transition which is captured with great close-ups and the strict usage of diegetic music. In its best moments, the cinematography shows the Solé’s collective, standing aversion towards the solar panels and celebrates their chemistry and joyfulness with a dinner and swimming pool sequence while continuously fleshing out the character’s mindsets.

Alcarràs’ strangely conservative component though is its opponent in the form of renewable energy. It gets demonized through the Solé's eyes several times in the story, but the installation of the panels doesn’t feel all that menacing, except for the excavators plowing its way through the farm. There is also a heated conversation between Quimet and Pinyol, the land owner and head of the region’s solar panel installation project, but it doesn't leave an impression with the stalemate between Quimet's stubbornness and Pinyol's unknown reasons for choosing the green technology (perhaps a demand for an alternative power supply or tempting profits for the land owner, who knows). But the film’s essential strengths lie in its authentic ensemble of real casted Catalonians and the near meditative farewell to an agricultural legacy.