'Los domingos', an atypical Spanish film when it comes to addressing religious issues

Spanish cinema, with a few notable exceptions, has been scaring off a significant portion of its audience with its biases for years.

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One of the clearest biases is that related to religion, often treated as a caricature, a parody, or a crude manipulation of reality. This is one of the reasons why, as a Catholic, I am discouraged from watching many Spanish films. I must admit that I thought the film "Los domingos" (The Sundays) released in theaters today, would be just another in that tradition of bias, and I had no intention of even going to see it, as the trailer gave me a very false impression of the film.

This morning I changed my mind after reading a tweet from @blck_wtr_ linking to a review by Juan Orellana published today in El Debate about that film. I usually agree with him and he spoke very highly of it, so I decided to go see it.

"Los domingos" is directed by Alauda Ruiz de Azua, a Basque filmmaker born in 1978. The film, set in the Basque provinces, tells the story of a 17-year-old girl, Ainara, who decides to become a nun. The film won the Golden Shell and the Irizar Basque Cinema Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Furthermore, the World Catholic Association for Communication has awarded it the Signis Prize, highlighting in this film "the courage of a cinema that allows itself to question without dogma and that invites the viewer to look honestly at the religious experience as part of human complexity, without shying away from the criticism of possible ideological drifts that impoverish the encounter with the transcendent."

Blanca Soroa has played an excellent leading role, with Patricia López Arnaiz also playing her aunt Maite, an atheist who counterpoints the young woman's religious vocation. The film deals with religious issues with great care and respect, presenting the position of both believers and non-believers. The care taken with the ecclesiastical aspects is truly admirable.

It's worth appreciating that Alauda Ruiz de Azua made a film like this, which treats viewers as adults, without taking sides, but rather explaining the reasons for both. Personally, I think the worst part of this film is the atheist position, because as Orellana rightly points out, what we see in this film is, on the one hand, respect (from both Catholics and non-believers) for the freedom of a girl who has felt God's calling, and on the other, an intolerance falsely disguised as respect that refuses to accept anyone choosing that vocation simply because they don't share it. However, the director has not, nor did she need to, add any bias in this regard: it is, unfortunately, a reflection of the daily reality we see in Spain.

In short: I was pleasantly surprised by the film. I highly recommend it. Here's the trailer (the video is in Spanish; you can activate automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):