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Argentinean cinematographer-turned-first-time director Diego Martínez Vignatti helms the oblique, ascetic, and deliberate psychological drama Tides (aka La Marea, 2007). This Belgian production commences on a pivotal moment of devastation for its central character, the wife and mother Azul (Eugenia Ramírez Miori): both her husband and son are instantly killed in a car accident. She survives, however, and is driven by grief into an emotional and psychological abyss. Seemingly unable to continue the normal progression of her life, she moves into a bare iron shack on the edge of the beach, grows incommunicative to the point of being virtually mute, and emerges periodically with an oversized metal trough strapped to her back, undertaking lengthy treks to the nearest fresh-water well. Hope finally arrives, first in the form of a sickly dog that Azul nurses back to health, then in the form of a fisherman who turns up in Azul's life and stirs warm feelings inside of her -- but even these elements may not be enough to lift the poor woman out of her doldrums and turn her around.