Kritiken

As an operatic family drama, shot through with two suicides, one murder, sexual assault, and (il)legitimate children, the story draws on conventions of Greek tragedy and classical melodrama. Formally, however, Petra is an exercise in restraint. This restraint prevents the film’s unconventional structure from coming off as mere auteurist/male hubris.

A search for answers runs through Petra, a playful, perplexing melodrama from seasoned Spanish director Jaime Rosales– but forces both in and outside of the film’s narrative complicate matters at every turn.

Well-trodden territory, rendered anew is likewise something that Jaime Rosales achieves with Petra, which bends both Greek tragedy and soap opera conventions into a superb formalist comedy.

Dialogue occupies but never completely dominates the soundscape, as the rhythm of the community—punctuated as much by Kristian Eidnes Andersen’s abstract score of hiccuped vespers as by the ubiquitous rumbling of wind-grazed trees—sculpts the film’s vaguely sacred tenor. It’s as immediately welcoming and seductive a mise en scène as I’ve encountered in some time.