paul2001sw-1 In Pedro Rubio-Gonzales' charming documentary film, we're introduced to a young family, sadly on the brink of a (apparently amicable) break-up. Before leaving for Europe with his mother, the child spends some time with his father, fishing off the beautiful Mexican coast. 'Alamar' just watches the two of them together: whatever his flaws as a husband, the father is laid back, and at one both with nature and his son: their time together is relaxed and fundamentally healthy, albeit in the form of a holiday from the everyday reality of working for a living. This isn't an earth shattering movie: but it's affectionate and heart-warming.

Errington_92 Feelings of great emotiveness immediately come to mind when thinking of Alamar. A fantastic documentary style film, Alamar deals with human relationships in a frank and moving manner.Beginning with Jorge speaking openly about his self criticism as a Father, Alamar goes into a short montage of pictures, achieve footage and music setting the emotive tone of the film as we are given the back-story of Jorge's failed relationship with Roberta, in which they produced a son. It's both beautiful to watch whilst saddening as we know it all came to an end which leads to the core focus of Alamar, a brief holiday between Jorge and his son Natan before departing from each other once more.The visual element of Alamar is the most powerful tool in conveying the relationship between Father and Son. The dialogue takes lower standing to this as the focus is placed on the pair interacting in the moment, Jorge holding his sleeping boy on a boat tenderly stroking his arm and later on teaching Natan how to swim underwater. These two examples are a small amount of organic situations in which Alamar focuses on making the viewing experience a vastly rich one. The hand held cinematography has to take credit also, making us become intimate with the people involved due to the cameras close proximity. One moment where Jorge's friend Matraca says directly to the camera, "I miss you, I adore you, I love you" makes us feel the love and lost he feels that would not have been achieved in any other form of cinematography.As well as being taken on an intimate ride with Jorge, Natan and Matraca on a emotional level Alamar can also been seen as a film of self discovery as like Natan, we are strangers to the ways of life in his Father's home of Banco Chinchorro. Here we learn at the same pace as Natan how the locals fish for their food, knowing where to stay clear of Crocodiles and study the mannerisms of an Egret. Jorge instills into Natan much knowledge that we also gain.If you are to fully understand and enjoy this feature then you have to require an appreciation of all that Alamar embodies. It is a film of such tranquillity, beauty, knowledge and raw human emotion that the viewer should let themselves be taken in by in order to feel Alamar's brilliance.

Martin Teller A young boy's parents separate and before his mother whisks him off to Rome, he spends a few weeks with his father, fishing off the Banco Chinchorro reef in the Mexican Caribbean. That's all the "plot" there is, it's covered in the first 5 or 6 minutes. But sometimes all a movie needs to do is transport you to another place and mood, and this one does that wonderfully. The details of their sea-going life are presented slowly but gently, not laboriously. The relationships between father and son, grandfather and father, man and nature are beautiful. It's a serene, inviting existence. A recurring "character" is a small white egret who, in a series of captivating scenes, is harmoniously assimilated into their routine. They care for it together. By the end, without any grand revelations, we feel that Natan has learned something valuable about the gifts life has to give, and will carry that -- and peaceful memories of his father -- with him for the rest of his days. Lovely stuff.

Thiago Abe This movie, in my opinion, is a true movie: It makes you go to another place, feel life at a different pace. And once you're there, you can smell the salty water. You can feel your feet touching the sand. You're there, experiencing life with that other human beings (may they be as real as humans or fiction characters, they are alive). If you are open to what the film is showing, soon it will seduce you. The mood of the film fits perfectly to the images you see. It doesn't have that structured narrative so usual to more commercial films. It doesn't really matter if it's documentary or fiction, it's sensibility.May you like it or not, it's cinema as its best.