EL MAR

Raw, surrealist, homoerotic and sometimes violent melodrama – a highlight of Agustí Villaronga’s oeuvre. Mallorca 1936: a mass execution by fascists is witnessed by three children who subsequently take revenge. A decade later, they meet in a sanatorium.

Here’s a director’s name you should know: Agustí Villaronga. A Catalan stylist with a stunning debut (1986’s In a Glass Cage) that echoed such visionaries as Brian De Palma, Dario Argento, and David Lynch, his 2000 film reverberates with Spain’s repressed histories and its people’s hidden desires.