Perched on the bloated banks of the Usumacinta River in Chiapas, Mexico, El Remolino was forged decades ago by five families who saw promise in the area’s dense jungle and lightly mountainous landscape. Today, the town struggles to keep its school open, its farms dry enough to yield viable crops, and its livestock from drowning in the rainy season deluge. While many have fled, strikingly graceful and stoic siblings Pedro and Esther Benitez remain to conquer not only the flooded terrain but also the ghosts of a painful shared childhood. Pedro dreams of finding a loving husband and adopting a child. Esther wants to resurrect her studies and see her children graduate into thriving careers. Considerations of feminine identity and power, memory, and the influence of family poignantly converge in director Laura Herrero Garvin’s languid and beautifully filmed observation. This is a documentary shot with such dreamy yet acute depth and clarity that one can see almost anything in the water’s reflection. WFM