Romería review – Carla Simón’s gripping pilgrimage tackles Aids, parents and the legacy of secrets

Cannes film festivalA young woman arrives in a Spanish coastal city to meet the family of her dead father, who are hiding information about his life and death, in Simón’s distinctive dramaIs biology destiny? Spanish film-maker Carla Simón brings to Cannes her very personal and in fact auto-fictional project Romería (meaning “pilgrimage”) – about an 18-year-old girl, arriving in Vigo in Galicia on Spain’s bracing Atlantic coast. She is on a mission to find out more about her biological father who died here of Aids after he split from her mum, who has since died, too, and about her dad’s extended – and very wealthy – family.Romería returns Simón (and her audiences) to the complex and painful subject of her mother and father, which she first approached in her wonderful autobiographical debut Summer 1993 although for me the more conventionally enclosed fictional transformation of the material there might have given that film a sharper arrowhead of storytelling power. Continue reading...

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