Sundays: To Believe or Not to Believe

Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s work is grounded in family relationships, in the fragile bonds that sustain them, in what is said and what is left unsaid, in the tension of being accepted within one’s own domestic nucleus or feeling alien to it.

However, with each project the director goes further, taking risks when addressing uncomfortable topics that we do not want to see or that frighten us. If in Lullaby (Cinco lobitos, 2022) she delved into the difficulties of first-time motherhood with all its doubts and contradictory feelings, in the series Querer (2024) she took a giant step in discussing consent within marriage.

Now, with Sundays (Los domingos), she exceeds expectations by delving into such slippery subjects as religion, vocation, and faith, to discuss the impact of Catholic education within the family.

Thus, a 17-year-old girl, motherless (the debutante Blanca Soroa), decides that she does not want to live like other girls of her age, because she feels the call of God and wishes to become a cloistered nun. For this reason, she begins a process of discernment, advised by members of the congregation, after which she must make a decision that will decide the rest of her life.

This event brings out the differences in both character and ideology among her family and friends: her aunt (the always brilliant and overwhelming Patricia López Arnáiz) cannot understand her determination and reacts viscerally, thinking that the girl is being manipulated by members of the Church, while her father (Miguel Garcés), more concerned with other selfish matters (mainly monetary), remains passive in face of this situation and prefers not to take sides.

The director uses the different points of view to generate a space of constant questioning around something as intangible as spirituality, encouraging the viewer to participate actively in the reflective process that the film constructs, to the point of blowing up their own belief system or, on the contrary, making them cling to it even more. Each character faces this issue from their own crises, hopes, and convictions in a kind of battle that is both emotional and spiritual.

The script introduces uncomfortable questions and paradoxes that transcend the particular case of the protagonist. The story asks, for example, whether the family would react the same way if the young woman embraced a faith other than Catholicism, or why society tolerates creeds seeking followers among minors, even with parental consent. It also questions the role of a secular state that finances an education which is not strictly secular and asks whether, in a society that accepts inequality and poverty, it is not legitimate to withdraw and seek refuge in a convent.

Sundays is an extremely complex work told with unheard-of transparency. It is full of details, of an austerity which hides precision in every shot that reaches exquisite levels of refinement. Its sobriety in this sense ends up being disturbing.

Indeed, Sundays confirms that Alauda Ruiz de Azúa is a director of indomitable spirit for her discretion and determination when reflecting on taboo subjects, daring to show them in a way that is as harsh as it is deeply revealing. Watching Sundays is like an act of faith; you do not in which mood you will leave the screening: fascinated or upset. It is enormous cinema that stirs, challenges, and convulses from apparent serenity.

By Beatriz Martínez
Edited by Birgit Beumers
Copyright FIPRESCI