Light and shadows in a crumbling mansion in the Basque countryside are the central players in this exquisite, painterly study of the passage of time. “An exquisitely high-art variation on the haunted-house movie.” — Hollywood Reporter
An exquisitely high-art variation on the haunted-house movie.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2011
Aita 2010
‘History is slow, life is fast’ in this ancient place once traversed by pilgrims on the Way of Saint James. The building’s elderly caretaker and his friend, a priest, playfully ponder mortality while planes of light shimmer and the darkness reverberates with flickering images from bygone eras. Past momentarily haunts the present as images appear on a grainy wall-screen, as though emanating from the edifice’s very stones. Dilapidated splendour and illustrious heritage don’t beguile every visitor: young thieves ransack the place, destructively impervious to the radiance of shadows. — SR
“Its colorwork is as minute as the range of grey is meticulous and infinite, deep rubies popping out of a corner illuminated by a window and the whispered shock of shadowy green against the flat modernist palette produced from the combination of the old opulence and the current decay.” — Daniel Kasman, Mubi.com