Set somewhere in the wide expanse of northern Spain, director Victor Erice beautifully crafts the growing fascination of Estrella – both as a child and later a fifteen-year-old – for the unearthed secrets of her father’s past. Erice contrasts a childhood of mysteries and passing dreams with Estrella’s reality of subsequent years, wherein her father’s love for another woman is still alive and present. El Sur is a haunting and melancholic meditation on knowledge and time.