‘Forastera’ Is a Spanish Thriller Whose Themes of Memory and Emotional Displacement Echo Classic Hollywood

The title of Lucía Aleñar Iglesias’s debut feature, “Forastera,” is the feminine form of a Spanish word for “outsider” and refers, ostensibly, to the picture’s lead character, Cata (Zoe Stein). She’s an eighteen-year-old ensconced at her grandparents’ summer home in Mallorca. Cata’s little sister, Eva (Martina Garcia), is fifteen, old enough to be a comrade-in-arms but young enough to be a subject for teasing. Three years can be a lifetime when you’re a teenager.Cata’s grandfather Tomeu — Lluís Homar, gruff but avuncular — spends the days playing cards with his buddies. Tomeu’s wife, Catalina (Marta Angelat), prepares food in the kitchen, but, alas, has not refrigerated the beer. The house has recently been renovated, and Tomeu is particularly pleased with a terrace that overlooks the crystalline waters of the Mediterranean. When Cata isn’t hanging with abuela and abuelo, she spends her time rafting, swimming, and canoodling with a Danish boy on holiday, Max, played by Nonni Ardal Hammarström.An idyllic setting, don’t you think? What is most ideal is that the mother of Cata and Eva, Pepa (Núria Prims), is far, far away. We get a clue that the relationship between Cata and Pepa is difficult when the former picks up a phone call from the latter and then pretends to be Catalina. As a result, Cata is made privy to intimations of otherwise unstated family dramas. Once mom catches on to the ruse, Cata hangs up the phone forthwith. Problem solved, at least for the moment.Upon returning from a beachside revelry late one night, Cata discovers her grandmother dead at the foot of a stairwell to the family’s house. Why Catalina felt the need to take out the trash in the wee hours is a mystery, though it is suggested that she was waiting up for Cata. At sundry moments in Ms. Iglesias’ film, we witness an otherwise impassive Cata undergoing realizations that are as ambiguous as they are marked. Mourning, for this young woman, is an obstacle that may be clouded with guilt.Otherworldly portents are woven into Ms. Iglesias’s screenplay. A flickering kitchen light is one signal that the family dynamic will be dramatically overturned. Other intimations are more subtle, particularly when cinematographer Agnès Piqué Corbera, working alongside editor Paolo Fredi, gives weight and body to indelible moments of sorrow, distraction, loss and love. “Forastera” is a film that unfolds at a determined pace. Death and its aftermath are endowed with an amplitude that is cinematic in means, but closer in tone to literature.The most overt nod to temporal friction is when Cata dons vintage clothing found in Catalina’s closet. An Op-inspired dress circa 1966 fits like a dream, and Cata begins to take on some of her grandmother’s attributes: She starts to smoke and attempts cooking. Pepa is unhappy with these changes, seeing in them a set of provocations that don’t bode well. Tomeu is equally disconcerted but also made curious by Cata’s behavior. Are her actions helping his grief or exacerbating his despair?A muffled sense of unease filters through the story that can be likened to the displacement of memory and emotion seen in Otto Preminger’s “Laura” (1944), Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” (1958), and David Lowery’s “Ghost Story” (2017). Ms. Iglesias’s story is nowhere near as overt, unfolding, as it does, with a quiet, wary grace. The nuances in Ms. Stein’s performance bely her years just as the years bolster the performances by Ms. Angelat and Mr. Homar. “Forastera” is an exceptional motion picture.

‘Forastera’ Is a Spanish Thriller Whose Themes of Memory and Emotional Displacement Echo Classic Hollywood

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