Cold Water of the Sea

Cold Water of the Sea

Director: Paz Fábrega

Country: Costa Rica

Language:Spanish

Rodrigo and Mariana is an affluent, loving young couple on a New Year's break. Late one night, they are driving along the remote south Pacific coast when they come across seven-year-old Karina, who appears lonely and desperate. She tells the couple that she has run away from home, and confesses to them a dark secret. Rodrigo and Mariana resolve to stay with the girl through the night and help her, but in the morning, Karina is gone. The couple checks into a hotel and continue with their holiday, but Mariana is haunted by what the girl has told her, and becomes increasingly more distressed. In the meantime, Karina has returned to where her family is camping on the beach close to a nature reserve, where adults fear falling into the tunnels their children have built under the sand and poisonous sea snakes have made their way onto land. Paz Fábrega’s Cold Water of the Sea is set in a place of idyllic beauty, though the focus is on the experiences of two women of different ages, from different social backgrounds, and the internal, psychological troubles in their paradise. We find a juxtaposition of the 21 year old Mariana and the seven year old Karina. Both these characters face a traumatic psyche due to disequilibrium state of normancy.