Plein air (2022), the absence of light in comtemporary «plenairism». The refraction of urban artistic and personal concerns in the imaginary rural terrain

Abstract

The «Pleinarism» is the impressionist artistic movement chosen by the filmmaker and painter Raúl Herrera in the scenery of the Valle de Mena (Burgos, Spain) to access to the emotional and identity landscapes that his characters intertwine in the second short piece of his filmography, Plein Air (2022). Emma (Ana Polvorosa) visits her mother (Ana Torrent) in the land of her childhood and adolescence, now lacking the light that is also absent in her work as an artist. The aim of the protagonist will be thus to try to cast light on an unfinished and update the pictorial portrait of her past from a restlessness resulting of her moving from the country to the city and her disoriented situation in art. The present work tries to define the relationship mother-daughter proposed by Herrera in that searching for light where Emma rejects to start from her origins. On her part, the character played by Ana Torrent claims it as the ideal place to reflect and settle her experience and maturity, in contrast with other films of rural themes she starred to adjust to the same evocative motif in the skins of characters such.