22/09/2024 - Spanish director Pilar Palomero presents a devastating and beautiful film starring a compelling Patricia López Arnaiz about the end of life and its continuity

We never face death head-on. We need to know that we have an expiration date, that everything has an end, to keep in mind that it can happen to us; a character reminds us in Glimmers [+see also:
trailer
interview: Pilar Palomero
film profile], the new film by Pilar Palomero, based on the novel Un corazón demasiado grande by Basque writer Eider Rodríguez, which is now in competition at the 72nd San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Starring Patricia López Arnaiz, Antonio de la Torre, Julián López and newcomer Marina Guerola, the film tells the story of an unexpected reunion of what was once a family when one of its members falls ill. Despite having rebuilt her life and having been estranged from her ex-husband for years, Isabel's life is turned upside down the day her daughter asks her to visit him regularly, as he is terminally ill. Palomero narrates the process of supporting a loved one (or a former loved one) in death, the remaining time until it happens. Everything there is in that process, the moments of bitterness and also of ephemeral happiness, the attempt to say goodbye as best as possible (or, at least, worthily) to the loved one, everything that a death leaves behind, what was and is no longer, what could have been and will no longer be, everything that goes with that person who dies. Through the moving character of Arnaiz, the film also speaks of the possibility of human generosity, of humanity, of people's capacity for empathy and true solidarity. The relationship she had with her daughter's father ended badly, but she decides to get closer to him again and accompany him in the process of dying, trying to put aside what happened between them.

It is precisely this subtlety in the telling of this twisted sentimental relationship that is one of the film's great successes. Palomero mindfully uses the off-screen and never explicitly tells us exactly what happened between the couple. We are only to understand that her character now sees the other (a surprising de la Torre in a performance far removed from his usual roles) as a stranger. If it weren't for the circumstances, she would not want to know anything about him, but who in spite of this, ends up here. The humanity that runs throughout the film also comes from the closeness and truth conveyed by its main cast. A tenderness, delicacy and beauty - a heartbreaking and at times magical beauty - with which the director films those moments of sadness and fleeting joy, of a past that is moving away, a present that is leaving and a future that will be no more. Because, in the end, the film is just that; glimpses of life and death, life with its precarious moments, good and bad, when death is near.

Glimmers is a moving, devastating and beautiful film, that achieves great depth about the end of life and its continuity. A film from a director capable of narrating human stories with a unique sensitivity, with honesty, simplicity, restraint and without pretentiousness, of capturing in images those glimmers of what really matters in life.

Glimmers is a co-production by Mod Producciones and Inicia Films, whose international sales will be managed by Film Factory.

(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)