Ìý 
At the moment Europe is pumping out films about growing up at about the same rate as Hollywood. Whereas the Tinseltown variety thunders to the sound of materialism and egotism, the European take on the genre embraces both sweetness and silence. But the sound of silence can be tedious if the director is lazy, and that's most certainly the case with Montxo Armendariz who, in spending an awfully long time unfurling a really small story, is perfectly content to let his camera (and us) gaze upon a cute Spanish kid.
He is the kind of thoughtful, sensitive, over-imaginative child, familiar from any number of European films, who is both fascinated by and fearful of the world around him, whether he is keeping a safe distance from a spider and its web, peeking at his aunt as she has a dress fitted, or gawping at two dogs enjoying a moment of familiarity (his unworldliness means he thinks they are killing one another). He is convinced that ghostly voices can be heard in a seemingly abandoned house and that he can detect his dead father in the room where he shot himself.
Armendariz certainly knows how to sustain a gentle, sombre mood and how to light and frame his film (which, true to type, always looks great), but he gives us far too many examples of the boy's (in)experience. Given that he only has to register fascination or fear, Andoni Erburu is quietly powerful as the youngster who, no surprise, has grown up by the end.
