Perhaps in the most (or least) striking scene of the film, Ángel visits a half-brother over sixty years old who lives without many economic limitations. For the first time, he is left speechless. The camera captures that discomfort, that sense of emptiness, and by contrast, makes us relive the effervescence of previous birthdays—full of laughter, music, and celebration. The scene doesn’t serve an obvious dramatic purpose, but it achieves something more subtle: it shows us what Ángel cannot say. Throughout the film, which runs just over three hours, what prevails is not dramatic spectacle or a desire to fit into a narrative mold. There are no speculations here, no fabricated climaxes. The film transcends its condition as an end in itself to become a medium—a cinematic device that creates the conditions for a profoundly real and unbreakable bond to emerge.
Comparisons with Richard Linklater’s Boyhood are inevitable, but ultimately insufficient. While that film built a (somewhat stiff) fiction around the real passing of time, The Prince of Nanawa does something more honest and radical: it embraces time as raw material, without imposing a predetermined shape. There is no closed design here, but rather a constant openness to the unexpected, the imperfect, the human. The work of Clarisa Navas and her team—especially Lucas Olivares—goes far beyond technical accomplishment. Their presence in Ángel’s life is emotional, ethical, and political. On more than one occasion, the director appears on screen discussing with her collaborators what to film, reflecting on the limits of the project. The doubts and tensions that arise in those conversations serve as a reminder that filming is also a way of intervening in the world, of taking responsibility.
But beyond those ethical questions, what stands out is the physical, emotional, and political commitment of a filmmaker who puts her body into the work. Clarisa Navas does not hide behind the camera: she appears, listens, and gets involved. She allows herself to be affected by what she films, and that presence transforms the film. Putting one’s body on the line here is not just about being there, but being with. It means being part of another person’s life without appropriating it, accompanying without erasing or directing, supporting without imposing. In one scene, the director accompanies Ángel in a moment of doubt and frustration—not offering answers, but simply her presence. Her body is there, as it has been all those years, embracing the ups and downs of the relationship, the tensions, the distance and closeness. That involvement embodies a way of making cinema that rejects the anthropological gaze. Instead, it embraces an ethics of care, of presence, of building something together. The director does not observe from a distance—she allows herself to be moved. And in that surrender, there is something deeply political.
