Elisa K

For the first third of this promising Catalan film an avuncular-sounding narrator describes the mundane details of ten year-old Elisa’s weekends spent with her father: they eat at their favourite restaurant, go to the amusement park, watch TV. Then, in the same matter-of-fact tone, we are told that on this particular weekend, Elisa was raped. The effect is chilling and foreshadows what’s to come. As a child, Elisa erased all memory of that day, but the film shifts into a more frenzied gear when we meet the grown-up Elisa at the moment those memories flood back. Impressively naturalistic, though that means it’s not always easy to watch.