"En tu ausencia" (In your absence) is a 2008 film by Spanish director Ivan Noel. It was actually his first film, to make which he sold his house and most of his belongings. The talented director has wonderfully impressed on the film - as a painter would have done on his canvas - the wonderful sunlit landscape of the countryside around the small hilltop village of Ubrique, near Jerez, located in the astonishing Andalusia (southern Spain)
Equally surprising is the acting naturalness of the locals - all at their first experience - and above all that one of the very young Gonzalo Sánchez Salas who plays the protagonist, Pablo, and grows physically with him: in fact filming took a year because the director wanted to capture the changing seasons and landscape, reflecting the mood and thoughts of the protagonists (so the boy starts playing his character at age 11 and finishes at 12).
Pablo Gonzales is a 13-year-old who lives in the countryside quite far from the village and from the boys of his age; Pablo has no other way to spend his summer days wandering alone in the open air running, jumping and doing things that you can do only at his age. Sometimes he practices with his father's rifle.
He has a friend who lives not far from him, Julia, a cheeky fifteen-year-old who casually helps Pablo in the transition from childhood to adolescence, giving him some "advice" even on sex (ok, more practical examples than advice, I must say) .
One day, while wandering through the fields, Pablo meets a man, Paco (played by Francisco Alfonsin), whose car broke down there, in the middle of nowhere. The man asks Pablo if he can help him start the car while he fiddles in the engine compartment, but it's no use, the car won't start.
The local postman, who arrived on his bicycle, also offers to help, but he can't do it either. To the postman's specific question, Paco replies that he is from northern Spain, remaining suspiciously vague about the precise location. That's why, having gone far enough, the postman, with an excuse, brings Pablo closer and tells him to go home and not stay with that unknown man.
Pablo doesn't listen to him at all and stays there with the man who asks him if he can take him to the village mechanic who goes to the site with them and, after a check, tells Paco that the car must be taken to his garage and that he will need a few days to find spare parts. Paco thanks him and tells him that an old friend of his lives in the area, even if he doesn't remember exactly where: they served together in the army and he has been looking for him for many years. When he reveals his name - what an incredible coincidence! - that friend is Pablo's father!
When the mechanic has left, Paco asks Pablo if he can take him to his father. While they're walking to the village, Paco tells him about his friendship with his father. The boy listens with his head down, sad. When they reach a decadent cemetery, Pablo enters and heads towards a tombstone: Paco now understands that his old friend was dead and bursts into tears.
Paco asks Pablo how it happened and the boy vaguely replies that he fell and died after three weeks in hospital. Pablo describes his father as an exceptional man, very close to him and who loved his son. And if his father punished him, it was because he was scatterbrained and his father wanted to raise him well.
But while the boy states these things, his flashbacks make his father appear different, far from be kind to his son, whom he often punished harshly and heratless in someway. Like when his father forced him to drown his dog who had caused damage in the chicken coop.
Oddily enough, Paco seems to know things he shouldn't be supposed to know about Pablo's life. In particular, he tells him that anyone has his own secrets and has done things in life to regret about. He tells the boy: «no matter if you have made mistakes in the past: you are guilty of nothing; you are a good boy.» Something truly precise, not random.
The fact is that Pablo, despite his very young age, really has something to regret about. In fact another flashback let us realize that it was Pablo who accidentally caused his father's death: the man is on the roof to repair some tiles and Pablo come and get the ladder on where the man had one of his feet, whithout seeing him at all. The man falls to the ground, suffering serious injuries that will lead to his death.
Paco's very affectionate attitude towards Pablo make the boy begin to feel a strong bond with him, but it is something that seems to go slightly beyond simple friendship: the following day Pablo and Paco are at the lake: once out of the water, the boy strips completely naked and lay down right in front of Paco, almost luring him. Paco invites Pablo to get dressed because it is not an appropriate behavior. So Pablo does it.
After a while arrives the postman (always him) to tell Paco that his car is fixed, then he leave. Paco and Pablo also leave and Paco tells Pablo that now he has to leave forever. The boy, very sad, tells him he must stay, he can live at his house; but the man smiles and tells that it is not possible.
In the meantime, the mechanic's son drown in the lake while he's playing with two friends, who deadly scared, tell the adults that they don't know what's happened, but they had seen Paco there. The postman that had seen him there with Pablo short before, put the blame on Paco for the boy's death.
Pablo returns home to grab his rifle and sees Paco's hat hanging in the entrance. He come close to his mother's bedroom whose door is slightly open and sees her in bed with Paco, both naked. Paco is saying that it was easy with Pablo who in only two days ended asking him to live at his house. He also says that Pablo is a good boy but he is a bit strange, different... like "a little queer".
So it became clear that the two had known each other and had been lovers for some time. It is all too evident that everything was organized from the beginning by the two lovers to make sure that Pablo could become very close to Paco and could thus accept him as his stepfather.
What he saw and heard causes Pablo's anger to explode and he start to shout insults at Paco, running away in the courtyard. Totally out of his mind, he points his rifle at Paco, who has just come out. The man tries to calm and disarm him. In the meantime, the postman, just arrived, snatches the rifle from Pablo hands and then shoots Paco who collapses in a pool of blood.
Pablo is terrified and in tears; his mother kneels over her lover's body, regardless of her son who is totally shocked repeating "dad, dad" - as if he were reliving his father's death - and then runs away towards the lake where he sits down and bursts into endless tears.
Once this dramatic scene has faded, a leap of several years, takes us in the present: Paco did not die, but the serious injuries suffered bring him in a wheelchair. The man tells an adult Pablo the whole story for the first time: both he and his friend (Pablo's father) loved the same woman (Pablo's mother). But when Pablo was born she marries Pablo's father who "wins" the love dispute between friend. After her husband's death, Pablo's mother called Paco because she still loved him and conv9ince him to move at her's. And we know the rest.
Paco tells absent Pablo that he doesn't blame him for what happened, after all he was just a child. As if the fault did not lie exclusively with the two adults who had concocted such a selfish and cruel plan, which meant to play with the feelings of a child who had recently lost his father and for whose death he felt guilty.
While Paco is still talking, Pablo leaves without having said even a word and letting the man alone with his ghosts and his selfiness.
Equally surprising is the acting naturalness of the locals - all at their first experience - and above all that one of the very young Gonzalo Sánchez Salas who plays the protagonist, Pablo, and grows physically with him: in fact filming took a year because the director wanted to capture the changing seasons and landscape, reflecting the mood and thoughts of the protagonists (so the boy starts playing his character at age 11 and finishes at 12).
Pablo Gonzales is a 13-year-old who lives in the countryside quite far from the village and from the boys of his age; Pablo has no other way to spend his summer days wandering alone in the open air running, jumping and doing things that you can do only at his age. Sometimes he practices with his father's rifle.
He has a friend who lives not far from him, Julia, a cheeky fifteen-year-old who casually helps Pablo in the transition from childhood to adolescence, giving him some "advice" even on sex (ok, more practical examples than advice, I must say) .
One day, while wandering through the fields, Pablo meets a man, Paco (played by Francisco Alfonsin), whose car broke down there, in the middle of nowhere. The man asks Pablo if he can help him start the car while he fiddles in the engine compartment, but it's no use, the car won't start.
The local postman, who arrived on his bicycle, also offers to help, but he can't do it either. To the postman's specific question, Paco replies that he is from northern Spain, remaining suspiciously vague about the precise location. That's why, having gone far enough, the postman, with an excuse, brings Pablo closer and tells him to go home and not stay with that unknown man.
Pablo doesn't listen to him at all and stays there with the man who asks him if he can take him to the village mechanic who goes to the site with them and, after a check, tells Paco that the car must be taken to his garage and that he will need a few days to find spare parts. Paco thanks him and tells him that an old friend of his lives in the area, even if he doesn't remember exactly where: they served together in the army and he has been looking for him for many years. When he reveals his name - what an incredible coincidence! - that friend is Pablo's father!
When the mechanic has left, Paco asks Pablo if he can take him to his father. While they're walking to the village, Paco tells him about his friendship with his father. The boy listens with his head down, sad. When they reach a decadent cemetery, Pablo enters and heads towards a tombstone: Paco now understands that his old friend was dead and bursts into tears.
Paco asks Pablo how it happened and the boy vaguely replies that he fell and died after three weeks in hospital. Pablo describes his father as an exceptional man, very close to him and who loved his son. And if his father punished him, it was because he was scatterbrained and his father wanted to raise him well.
But while the boy states these things, his flashbacks make his father appear different, far from be kind to his son, whom he often punished harshly and heratless in someway. Like when his father forced him to drown his dog who had caused damage in the chicken coop.
Oddily enough, Paco seems to know things he shouldn't be supposed to know about Pablo's life. In particular, he tells him that anyone has his own secrets and has done things in life to regret about. He tells the boy: «no matter if you have made mistakes in the past: you are guilty of nothing; you are a good boy.» Something truly precise, not random.
The fact is that Pablo, despite his very young age, really has something to regret about. In fact another flashback let us realize that it was Pablo who accidentally caused his father's death: the man is on the roof to repair some tiles and Pablo come and get the ladder on where the man had one of his feet, whithout seeing him at all. The man falls to the ground, suffering serious injuries that will lead to his death.
Paco's very affectionate attitude towards Pablo make the boy begin to feel a strong bond with him, but it is something that seems to go slightly beyond simple friendship: the following day Pablo and Paco are at the lake: once out of the water, the boy strips completely naked and lay down right in front of Paco, almost luring him. Paco invites Pablo to get dressed because it is not an appropriate behavior. So Pablo does it.
After a while arrives the postman (always him) to tell Paco that his car is fixed, then he leave. Paco and Pablo also leave and Paco tells Pablo that now he has to leave forever. The boy, very sad, tells him he must stay, he can live at his house; but the man smiles and tells that it is not possible.
In the meantime, the mechanic's son drown in the lake while he's playing with two friends, who deadly scared, tell the adults that they don't know what's happened, but they had seen Paco there. The postman that had seen him there with Pablo short before, put the blame on Paco for the boy's death.
Pablo returns home to grab his rifle and sees Paco's hat hanging in the entrance. He come close to his mother's bedroom whose door is slightly open and sees her in bed with Paco, both naked. Paco is saying that it was easy with Pablo who in only two days ended asking him to live at his house. He also says that Pablo is a good boy but he is a bit strange, different... like "a little queer".
So it became clear that the two had known each other and had been lovers for some time. It is all too evident that everything was organized from the beginning by the two lovers to make sure that Pablo could become very close to Paco and could thus accept him as his stepfather.
What he saw and heard causes Pablo's anger to explode and he start to shout insults at Paco, running away in the courtyard. Totally out of his mind, he points his rifle at Paco, who has just come out. The man tries to calm and disarm him. In the meantime, the postman, just arrived, snatches the rifle from Pablo hands and then shoots Paco who collapses in a pool of blood.
Pablo is terrified and in tears; his mother kneels over her lover's body, regardless of her son who is totally shocked repeating "dad, dad" - as if he were reliving his father's death - and then runs away towards the lake where he sits down and bursts into endless tears.
Once this dramatic scene has faded, a leap of several years, takes us in the present: Paco did not die, but the serious injuries suffered bring him in a wheelchair. The man tells an adult Pablo the whole story for the first time: both he and his friend (Pablo's father) loved the same woman (Pablo's mother). But when Pablo was born she marries Pablo's father who "wins" the love dispute between friend. After her husband's death, Pablo's mother called Paco because she still loved him and conv9ince him to move at her's. And we know the rest.
Paco tells absent Pablo that he doesn't blame him for what happened, after all he was just a child. As if the fault did not lie exclusively with the two adults who had concocted such a selfish and cruel plan, which meant to play with the feelings of a child who had recently lost his father and for whose death he felt guilty.
While Paco is still talking, Pablo leaves without having said even a word and letting the man alone with his ghosts and his selfiness.