Sunday's Illness' ('La Enfermedad del Domingo'): Film Review

Spanish free thinker Ramon Salazar conveys his finest work to date with this stunningly acknowledged mother-girl get-together dramatization, playing in Berlin's Panorama.

In his two movies following his striking 2002 introduction Stones (additionally a Berlin player), Ramon Salazar has never fully satisfied his guarantee, however he unquestionably does as such now with the wonderfully made, otherworldly and sincerely punchy Sunday's Illness. This tale about the gathering, following a 35-year deserting, of a mother and girl, grandly played by Spanish performing artists Susi Sanchez and Barbara Lennie, individually, is moderate yet never cumbersome, clear in its diagrams however never shortsighted, and exquisitely created without being smothering. Ideally it will bear the cost of Salazar, whose movies have dependably had the value of being unmistakable, a tad bit of the universal acknowledgment his best work has merited.

Anabel (Susi Sanchez, transitorily witnessed by global auds playing the courageous woman's mom in Almodovar's Julieta, a mother-looks for little girl motion picture to which Illness speaks to a kind of antithesis) carries on with an existence of extraordinary riches. We first observe her, dressed with striking beauty by closet originator Clara Bilbao, traveling through the corridors of the palatial home she imparts to spouse Bernabe (Miguel Angel Sola) before quickly staggering, a concise portending that her life, as everyone's, isn't great.

One of the group of servers enlisted by Anabel for a substantial philanthropy supper is Chiara (Barbara Lennie), who has penetrated Anabel's home with the point of illuminating her that she is the tyke whom Anabel deserted at age 8. The silent scene of their gathering is only the first of their convincing associations.

Chiara issues an abnormal demand: She needs Anabel to go through 10 days with her, after which it will be bye-bye for eternity. (The scene in which this is arranged, including legal counselors and an agreement, is cunningly imagined.) They desert the city and go out to Chiara's provincial home in the French Pyrenees, where Anabel lived with her previous family and which looks maybe excessively all around kept up to be conceivable considering that Chiara has spent the interceding years floating, getting included with drugs and — in her own particular words — "leaving nothing to be pleased with."

The greater part of Illness' running time is spent portraying the disturbed relationship of the two ladies — a relationship that, at any rate from Chiara's perspective, is by all accounts made out of affection and detest in generally rise to amounts. Chiara unendingly incites Anabel in what is by all accounts a befuddled endeavor at exact retribution for the deserting — for instance getting her very rich mother canvassed in mud and after that washing her off with a hosepipe. Anabel endures everything, stoically tolerating this is the value she should now pay. At first a fish out of water, Anabel is gradually stripped of the trappings of riches, and the genuine lady underneath the social facade begins to come through.

The relationship unfurls generally in an air of hush, and the story would be frigidly paced had Salazar not accused every scene of some new passionate bend. At the point when words come they are typically characterizing, and it's not until the last half-hour or with the goal that both the watcher and Anabel are permitted into the not through and through obvious mystery of why she has been welcome to her girl's home.

Lennie and Sanchez are grand, Lennie contributing Chiara with a quality of putrefying, tired disdain that once in a while detonates into reckless skepticism, while Sanchez (working again with Salazar after his last film, 10,000 Nights Nowhere) gives Anabel a noteworthy blend of steeliness and effortlessness. The contrast amongst mother and girl is brought out best in two scenes that show them moving: Anabel does only it, to Mama Cass' "Fantasy a Little Dream," as an outflow of her inward discharge, while Chiara does it to the out and out less fantastic "99 Red Balloons," as the prelude to getting appallingly alcoholic at the nearby celebration.

Outwardly, Illness is for all intents and purposes flawless, with Ricardo de Gracia's surrounding, lighting and shading the country areas to regularly essential, painterly impact, contributing nature with all the ethereal enchantment he can marshal. It is to a great extent a film of affectionately created still shots, however maybe the best scene of all is a return to the bustling camerawork of 10,000 Nights: a two-minute shot of the two ladies slipping a mountain together on a toboggan. The scene is a confirmation to the nature of the performing artists as well as to Salazar's ability for wringing enthusiastic many-sided quality from a straightforward set-up.

In spite of its numerous temperances, Illness feels somewhat schematic, as in Salazar's emphasis on culminate craftsmanship can leave things feeling a little overdetermined: The way that Lennie utilizes a stone to slaughter a diminishing seagull, for instance, portends occasions to come excessively conveniently. In any case, this is a minor bandy in a film that pulls off the as well uncommon accomplishment of consolidating wonderful craftsmanship with real passionate power.

Creation organizations: Zeta Cinema, On Cinema

Cast: Barbara Lennie, Susi Sanchez, Greta Fernandez, Miguel Angel Sola, Richard Bohringer

Executive, screenwriter: Ramon Salazar

Maker: Francisco Ramos

Official maker: Rafael Lopez Manzanara

Executive of photography: Ricardo de Gracia

Workmanship Director: Sylvia Steinbrecht

Ensemble creator: Clara Bilbao

Manager: Teresa Font

Writer: Nico Casal

Deals: Zeta Cinema

Setting: Berlinale (Panorama)

113 minutes