double bill #2

Carefree tans and fleeting romances: we hold great expectations of a cinematic summer. Nevertheless, seasonal gloom blooms in The Summer Movie and Under the Sun.

Emmanuel Marre’s ode to the banal is woven into the mise-en-scène of his summer movie. Car washes, gas-station parking lots, and endless stretches of motorway romanticise the mundane. The road is endless, leading nowhere, and melancholy unfolds as a rite of passage. What is left unsaid bubbles beneath the surface of Under the Sun. Esquivel portrays a broken heart and a life steadily unraveling. Their woes—in both his and Marre’s films—are not discouraging; rather, they show a rupture that precedes renewal.

These films come undone in the daylight, grappling with what lies beneath the surface. Diving headfirst into the aftermath of divorce, they meditate on sunlit grief—on the road to Marseille, and down in Mexico.