What does it mean to walk away from a friendship that have known your whole life? Putting some distance into a fundamental relationship in your life? Are there things that have never been said in that friendship? Secrets? Lies? Unfulfilled intentions? How do you deal with resentment towards the other person? How can you forgive them for hurting you? How do you go on despite all this? Why carry on? These are some of the questions addressed in Mai parlarem de nosaltres [+leggi anche:
intervista: Raimon Valls
scheda film] (litt. We will never talk about ourselves), the debut film from Raimon Valls, currently screened in the Information Section of Mostra de València.

Starring Berta Galo and Paula Vicario, and in collaboration with Mònica Pérez and Jordi Ríos, the film tells the story of a friendship over one weekend. Two teenage girls spend a final weekend together before one of them leaves to live in France to embark on an artistic career. Over two days, a series of events put their friendship to the test. Through this weekend away, Mai parlarem de nosaltres examines the complexity and setbacks of friendship, the conflicts that arise, the things left unsaid, the gaps, the doubts, concerns, fears, and the capacity to love someone and also to hurt them (sometimes without realising or wanting to)...the clashing emotions of the people in that friendship.

The starting point for this film - the idea of telling the story of a friendship through a weekend away - is interesting. It allows the director and screenwriter to delve into those complexities, the shady areas of friendship. It also achieves that proposed intimate, close up tone at times. There are scenes that manage to reflect this closeness, capturing the tension, strengths and weaknesses that exist in any friendship (especially in well-craft argument that draws out such paradoxes and contradictions) and, in doing so, create a certain emotion and magic. The director’s narrative is simple and honest. There is no artifice or pretentiousness. He manages to capture the way a generation relate to each other, how they bond and communicate; the (often contradictory) emotions of adolescence and early adulthood. The problem lies in the fact that in this simplicity brings with it an element of over-explaining, of searching for a message, and this makes for a film that is too explicit, obvious, prefabricated and with an air of moral teaching. The music - marking the most dramatic and emotional moments - does not help this weakness of the film. It contributes to that easy sentimentality and a somewhat overused and repetitive video clip style.

Despite it's interesting premise, Mai parlarem de nosaltres ends up being a film that is too irregular, with an overused form and content, and a message that becomes too obvious, simple and obliging. Perhaps the best aspect of the film is the empathy and tenderness towards its characters, the way it tells the story without judging them and how, with that humanity it also manages to reflect and exalt the unique togetherness of adolescent friendships.

Mai parlarem de nosaltres is a Tramuntana Brava Films production.