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There is lots about emotional tension and teen yearning and the semi-official sexiness of swimming costumes in this confident directorial debut from Croatian movie-maker Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic, even though I puzzled approximately some beautifully shot visual cliches.
Julija (Gracija Filipovic) is the teenage daughter of Ante (Leon Lucev), an aggressively insecure guy whom she has to assist, diving underwater with him at the same time as he makes a dwelling at the rocky Adriatic shoreline spear-fishing moray eels (the “murina” of the title). She within reason close to her mum Nela (Danica Curcic) however in any other case unhappily proud and self-contained. Her father is jittery with pleasure due to the fact his antique friend Javi (Cliff Curtis) is coming to visit: a wonderful-wealthy alpha male who may be inquisitive about shopping for some of Ante’s land to turn into a holiday inn. It is some thing of an open mystery that Javi become once in love with Nela and may be still, and he is also a whole lot serious about Julija’s young splendor.
Ante realises at some aware level that adroitly keeping the ones feelings alive should help near the deal, however it’s a risky sport, and his very own fragile patriarchal manhood is at stake. As for Javi, does he quite realize that the land Ante is attempting to sell him is at the island of Kornat, which locals take into account blighted by means of the real-lifestyles tragedy of 2007 when 12 firefighters lost their lives there seeking to placed out a blaze?
All that is acted with smouldering intensity and authenticity, mainly by way of Filipovic, even though it’s viable to surprise if there may be anything unexpected to come back in the third act, or if we can kind of wager where it’s all heading. And also … dreamy-hallucinatory underwater sequences inside the movies are becoming over-familiar. At any fee, there are some very persuasive performances, and lovable cinematography by Hélène Louvart.
