‘Murina’ Is A Luminous & Disarmingly Frank Feature Debut From Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović [Review]

Say what you want about Martin Scorsese (comic book fanboys certainly do), but the man puts his money where his mouth is. Through initiatives like his The Film Foundation organization, he preserves the history of cinema. In his capacity as executive producer on a film like “Murina” by Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, he’s putting a down payment on the future of cinema. Kusijanović storms out of the gate with a confident coming-of-age tale full of relationships as rocky as the craggy Croatian coast in which the story unfolds.

The film’s somber shadings recall the adolescent angst of Andrea Arnold’sFish Tank” as teenage Julija (Gracija Filipović) navigates turbulent waters of work, love, and life. It doesn’t help that, as the daughter of a working-class family, the delineation of roles between Julija and her parents gets quite hazy. She functions as something of a business partner to her hot-headed father Ante (Leon Lučev) as he spearfishes for moray eel. Though she claims her persistent presence in the mornings is because she simply enjoys the diving aspect, Ante derives a perverse power from having his daughter in such proximity. Meanwhile, her mother, Nela (Danina Čurčić), has developed such a practiced passivity that Julija comes to regard her as a peer as much as a parent.

READ MORE: ‘Murina’ Director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović Talks Fearless Filmmaking & Fearing The Sea [Interview]

Their delicate détente begins to unravel with the arrival of Cliff Curtis’ Javier; a foreign businessman heralded as a “ruthless icon” by a cover of Bloomberg Businessweek. He’s an old friend of Julija’s parents whose deep pockets dredge up old baggage from their past. Javier has an eye on purchasing Ante’s long-held marine property to develop a resort, and the purchase would alleviate enough of a financial burden to allow the family to move inland to cosmopolitan Zagreb. The adults are committed to playing their part, though they do not count on Julija veering off-script.

Filipović’s performance masterfully captures the contradictions of the trapped teen. “No one’s serious at seventeen,” wrote poet Arthur Rimbaud, though he never met Julija. She finds comfort in staying with her family and loves the island, yet she also recognizes her burgeoning desire to leave. Javier, who instantly recognizes Julija’s potential, represents her first legitimate avenue for escape. But unlike glossy Hollywood teen movies featuring protagonists who’d kill for her home as an Instagram backdrop, “Murina” does not indulge the fantasy that a young woman has ultimate control over her own destiny through sheer force of will.

Rocky waters lie ahead for Julija as she begins to step out independently to individuate. No element of the film underscores this better than the inquisitive camerawork of Hélène Louvart, which captures the tensions between her interior life and how the world perceives her. Taken in tandem with her extraordinary lensing of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,” Louvart is on an absolute tear actualizing the gazes of first-time female directors.

Julija is frequently in a state of active spectatorship, taking in the events around her and contemplating how she can jump in herself. It’s in that gulf between intention and action where Kusijanović wrings exquisite tension out of “Murina,” especially regarding her sexuality. Julija has a sensuality without much sentience, unaware of how to communicate desire – or how others perceive it. She herself does not even seem capable of perceiving whether she’s flirting or merely fraternizing at a given moment.

As “Murina” continues on its collision course with Julija’s independence, the roles reshuffle again, with Julija’s parents becoming more impediments than partners. Nela fashions herself into something of a romantic rival as she tries to stop her daughter from “looking like she’s in love” with Javier, her former flame. Ante, meanwhile, tries to head off Julija’s flight risk after Javier puts in her head that she should enroll at Harvard. Part of the journey to adulthood is learning to see one’s parents as flawed people rather than irreproachable figures of authority, and she certainly does not love the view.  

This is one of many familiar beats in the genre that “Murina” hits, although Kusijanović executes them with such an unexpected and unfamiliar sense of daring that the film never feels like it’s recycling the greatest hits. Her script, co-written with Frank Graziano, does write itself into a bit of a clichéd corner in the third act where all of Julija’s pent-up anger has no outlet but to erupt. Nonetheless, the accumulated goodwill from all the times Louvart and Kusijanović quietly survey Julija biting her tongue makes the explosions scorching all the same.

“Sea, I don’t know how to understand you,” intones Julija in a poem delivered early in the film. Kusijanović and Louvart draw a direct visual comparison between the body of water and the body of the protagonist in her luminous blue bathing suits. The camera in “Murina” often places the spectator directly behind Julija, as if she’s swimming away from the audience’s overbearing presence. Yet, in the film’s final scene, the relationship reverses as Louvart’s camera bobs gently ahead of Julija, aligning our position with the limitless but unknowable world ahead of the character. How refreshing and invigorating to know that Kusijanović, like her leading lady, still has so much to explore beyond the bounds of “Murina.” [B]

“Murina” is now playing at New York’s Metrograph and will begin expanding across the United States beginning July 15.