On the eve of San Juan, when summer inaugurates its fire rituals, Balearic proposes a double scenario: in a clandestine pool, some young people celebrate the shortest night of the year; In another, just a few steps away, adults toast between cocktails and music … suave. Both waters, however, hide underground tensions. For the intruders, the fun is broken when three dogs surround them and turn them into involuntary prisoners; For the hosts, the party advances oblivious to everything. Between those two worlds that do not touch – but reflect -, Ion de Sosa builds his sharpest story.
The initial spark for ‘Balearic’ arose from an early fascination with the film ‘The Swimmer‘, a cinematographic story that explored obsession and transformation through the swimming pools of a housing estate. “All those virtues caught me,” says Sosa, remembering how that film inspired him to create a “magnetism” and colors that he transferred to his own project. However, he emphasizes that the idea of the dogs trapped in the pool was not born to generate pure terror, but to combine «generational conflict and environmental apocalypse» in a work that alternates comedy and terror with surprising lightness. At first, what attracted me was the basic idea that there are two houses where there are two generations and two swimming pools that, in some way, are fantastically connected,” says the director. «At eighteen you want to take on the world, and then, at forty, you want a swimming pool. “The film finds out what happens between those years for dreams to change so abruptly.”
«All parents worry about the future of our children,
which will be, without a doubt, more difficult than ours»
Christina Rosenvinge, who plays a character whose life reflects idealistic disenchantment, describes the experience as deeply personal: “When I was making the film, I had small children. All parents worry about the future of our children, which will be, without a doubt, more difficult than ours»he comments, highlighting the generational relevance that the film runs through. For Sosa, ‘Balearic’ is a performative experience. “The film is an atmospheric vehicle,” he explains: “image, sound and music combine to transport the viewer, on a kind of visual and sound journey comparable to an electronic music record that varies on a constant basis.” The narrative, in turn, is constructed through the dichotomy between idealistic young people and well-off adults, symbolized in two pools that reflect different worlds and desires.
«It is so nice to see these people with such careful, beautiful, analog photography. These colors, these pairings around the pool, it is very beautiful… a cinema with cultural personality beyond the experience,” says Rosenvinge. The film, for the actress, dialogues with Buñuel’s work, the aforementioned ‘The Swimmer’, and other cinematographic milestones of experimental cinema, proposing, in her words, “a modern and radical vision that is distinguished from homogeneous contemporary production.”
Around the pools
Julián Génisson and Lorena Iglesias, actors in the film, reflect on their approach to the characters and filming. Iglesias explains that, although she is a trained actress, the film has a particular tone, “almost recited at times”, that moves away from traditional acting and approaches performance. Furthermore, the atmosphere of collaboration and creativity of the filming stands out, where artists from various disciplines – such as singers, yoga practitioners or post-porn performers – contributed to shaping both the script and the performances. “We weren’t just running a text, we were revising it, rewriting it as we went,” he says.
Photography from the filming of ‘Balearic’
The theme of the “new rich” also occupies a central place in the film. Génisson, who was also in charge of writing the script along with four other people, points out how The characters reflect the growing social polarization: «There are fewer and fewer intermediate statuses. Either you are a billionaire or you are radically destitute. “Everything tends towards insane concentrations, like pharaonic ones.” Iglesias describes an open and generous process when preparing the text: it was adapted until the last moment, allowing the actors to contribute to the story. “The film talks about people who are emotionally shielded, who have lost the ability to feel,” he explains, pointing out how the work reflects a systemic problem rather than individual failures.
Lorena Iglesias insists that the young people’s dialogues were worked to accurately reflect their way of speaking: «There are a lot of films in which young people talk like 40 year olds, and that is absurd. Here we wanted young people to feel challenged and identified,” he begins to explain, and then adds: “Besides, I don’t understand it. Do you dare to write a gangster movie, but not about teenagers? Julián Genisson emphasizes that the adult characters, blind to the consequences of their actions and emotionally disconnected, contrast with the curiosity and empathy of the young people: «This reminder of the old people we are becoming should not forget the young man we were. We must maintain intergenerational solidarity with ourselves».
The group of young people going to the ‘Balearic’ pool
The film also proposes a broader dialogue with the public. The ‘Balearic’ team believes that the film can generate conversations about lack of communication, inequality and the urgency of looking at reality, even when it is uncomfortable or alarming. «To talk about anomalies, you have to adopt a certain anomalous tone and a certain anomalous aesthetic, because it cannot be normalized that we are in this situation, the world is going to shit and we are having a great time,” explains Génnison. ‘Balearic’ is thus presented as a narrative and sensory experiment, where tension, irony and visual beauty combine to offer a meditation on youth, adulthood and expectations that change over time, all wrapped in the magical heat of a summer night.
