Popular reviews

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  Review by Sean Baker 5

  I was recommended to watch this film because of similarities to The Florida Project. Really happy I was turned on to it. Very reminiscent of Ponette.

  A six year old girl deals with the death of her parents and adjusting to a new family. Top notch performances and very strong feature debut film by Carla Simón.

  Looks like Oscilloscope will be releasing the film in the States sometime soon. (early 2018)

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  Review by marcelo

  Creo que ninguna película que yo haya visto (se me ocurren, a su manera, Boyhood y El espíritu de la colmena, la única con la que se me ocurriría comparar esto en realidad es Mi vecino Totoro) está tan comprometida con plasmar lo que es la infancia -la auténtica infancia-, la de escuchar a los mayores susurrándose cosas importantes, despertarte en casas extrañas y tener que tocar las paredes y entender cómo funcionan sus grifos, la infancia de cagarla de formas absurdas para un adulto y de no entender del todo por qué estás triste.
  Es de admirar la capacidad de Simón para mantener en todo momento la perspectiva infantil, con esos pequeños angulares y la cámara a la altura…

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  Review by Juan Castillo ★★★★½ 6

  Mayúsculo ejercicio de recreación de lugares, experiencias y sentimientos.
  Carla Simón necesitaba explicarnos su verano de 1993 y ahora podemos afirmar que el cine necesitaba que lo hiciese de esta manera. Desde esa perspectiva, dejando que las piezas encajen mediante minúsculas epifanías, trazando un círculo perfecto alrededor de un desconocido llamado dolor y con tres inmensas actrices afinadas con tesón.
  Estiu 1993 es la infancia en toda su complejidad. Es también un testimonio cargado de autenticidad sobre las dinámicas de pertenencia. Es diminuta y espectacular.
  Y sin que ningún monstruo visite a nadie.

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  Review by adrián ★★★★½

  Durante gran parte de los veranos que viví en los 90, llamé hogar a una pequeña granja en plena entrada de un pueblecito catalán. No os podéis imaginar lo fidedigna que es esta película plasmando cada pequeña idiosincrasia vagamente relacionada con ello.

  Lo increíble, aún así; es que es igual de fiel o más plasmando la naturaleza más cruda de la infancia y lo que es enfrentarse por primera vez a la pérdida de un ser querido a través de esos ojos. Pocas veces he visto a alguien tratar ese tema de una forma tan directa y sincera, sin acobardarse en ningún momento ni azucarar situación alguna para el espectador. Y, la verdad, creo que es algo con lo que es inevitable conectar, fueran como fueran nuestros respectivos veranos.

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  Review by laurareckless ★★★★★ 2

  me, crying for no reason: what the fuck now I like children

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  Review by laura ★★★★½ 1

  grief isn’t any less painful when told through the eyes of a child. it’s a pain that is so palpable. a loss of innocence. one of the most nuanced, poignant performances i’ve seen from a child actor, on the same level as noah jupe in honey boy & brooklynn prince in the florida project.

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  Review by Frances Meh ★★★½

  Grief or no, I’d a smacked that motherless child

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  Review by Jeff! ★★★★½

  Summer 1993 captures precisely what’s it like to grieve as a child. You’re too young to really explain or even go through the proper emotions, it just feels like a sudden shift in your life that you don’t completely understand and that’s what the film does so well. You slowly learn information, just bits and pieces just as a child would, it constantly feels like you’re missing out on the really important conversations just as a child would. You’re an outsider just as a child is.

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  Review by Lucy ★★★ 1

  AFI 2017: film #7

  quaint, but is that enough? who knows. also i was exhausted during this so who am i to judge

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  Review by David Espinosa ★★★★

  I remember my grandma died on a Monday, but I wasn't able to cry until it was Thursday.

  Grief, loss, and absence are really weird emotions, they are loud, but they hide in the most simple places; in a question, in an object, in the conversations by the window, in a song, and it's something none of us can really comprehend.

  Carla Simón creates a beautiful and tender portrait of grief, seen through the eyes of a child. It's such a subtle film and it feels elusive, but it has the most honest ideas about the loss of innocence, grief, and trying to find yourself in a new world. Frida may be a kid, but I think no one really understands this kind of change, not immediately, and the slow pace the movie has right until the end hides the most real emotions, the quietest approach to reality.

  2021 first time watches

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  Review by Jacob ★★★

  AFI Fest 2017: Movie #12

  There's no denying that Summer 1993 has a lot of heart. Taking an almost documentary approach, Carla Simon brings her own experiences to the big screen in a truly authentic way. At a certain point, though, the naturalistic style becomes a weakness. It's wonderful to see these children explore and just be generally adorable, but after eight scenes of that, I get a little impatient. I'm a fan of films that meander in their circumstances and landscapes in the name of developing character, but even that aspect fell to the back here.

  The peripheral action is so much more compelling than what we get in the foreground. Whispers of a virus float around Frida, and though…

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  Review by J ★★★★ 2

  patters of silence fill the early moments of Estiu 1993 until it sneakily rings the alarm of childhood issues. a poignant autofiction, it follows Frida, an orphan who moves into her uncle’s countryside house after her mother’s death. this film is not a pyrotechnic of drama. it is not a grand gesture of emotions. rather, it is an observational, dimensional reality of a child that puts herself away, bevelling isolation not only as self-imposed but as a sharp shove of social reaction. neighbours condescendingly pity Frida in the playground, sees her like fragments of gravel on a slide that’ll stick to other children’s clothes. one mother even scolds her kid and says “don’t touch her” as if having dead parents…