A teenage girl in a remote Spanish village becomes preoccupied with a local legend in El Agua (The Water). Ana (Luna Pamies) in a teenage girl in a small village in south-Eastern Spain, who lives with her bartender mother Isabella (Bárbara Lennie) and grandmother (Nieve De Medina). Ana recently started dating José (Alberto Olmo), the son of a local lemon farmer, which results in her becoming concerned about a local legend about women who disappear every few decades when the local river floods.
El Agua is the feature film debut from co-writer and director Elena López Riera. The film can be best described as a coming of age story that is steeped with folklore about the Segura river. The takes a pseduo-documentary approach at points, featuring talking head interviews with local women talking about how the water of the river gets inside some women and doesn’t let them get married.
El Agua is a relatively well-made film and some of the more enticing scenes involve the casual girl-talk that happens between Ana and her group of friends. However, I did think that the folklore heavy aspects of the narrative did clash somewhat with the young love that was Ana’s relationship with José. While El Agua is in some ways about the loss of innocence, I do with that the film was a bit more clear with this message.
