First: if you like Hollywood movies and the majority of the movies you look belongs to mainstream American production, don't bother either with this comment or with this movie. You'll waste your time.
Now, been left by the majority of IMDb users... it's not easy to say a comment for the rest either.
I am ready to be gentle to movies from countries that are not in the premiere league of world film production. However, they still must have something. Something to see and something to feel.
"Escrito en el agua" has something. In fact, it has a lot. Maybe too much for rather short footage. Many things have been touched, but not felt. Noticed, but not seen. Appeared, but not developed. Things that are sometimes expected for, and when they finally come you ask "Hey, is this all?". The others just occur when you don't expect, and disappear so quickly that you don't have time to really perceive them, not enough to get some impression, emotion, let alone thoughts about the subject.
And just making a list of subjects that have been started in the movie would be longer than the IMDb space limits. Though the probably main one is ecology, this movie is anti-Erin-Brokovich story: the hero isn't interested in pollution at all, he doesn't care for environment or people, he is slow and almost lethargic, and when he finally confronts his father, allegedly responsible if not for polluting, than at least for hiding and covering the facts we understand that everything has two sides, and, as if this isn't mild enough, some source (otherwise irrelevant to the story) washes away the guilt from the main suspect.
But it is not only the story (huh... what story?) that bothers me. The editing is weird... horrible in fact. As if somebody limited the length of the movie, but the director wasn't able to make a choice and left every single scene, yet cutting most of them, and then just connecting what's left without logic. This sounds like video-clips style movies; however, they are quick, and scenes are short but full of action. "Escrito..." is a slow movie, it is a slow drama with slow scenes, and no matter how cut they are, they are still slow, leaving us a feeling that something has been omitted.
The camera work also doesn't make us sorry for short scenes. Though beauty of landscape is favorite subject for some characters we don't see much of it. If "Escrito..." represents the beauty of the country, Argentina tourist workers should have demanded this one to be banned.
Relations between those few characters that we know should, as it seems, be the reason why the movie was made. But, as the rest, they also start out of the blue and we never find out how did they end. After some mild emotional relations the end comes as everything else it could have happened half an hour before or later, it would still have no sense.
The movie structure is asymmetric: first several minutes we meet some characters while they are in Buenos Aires, half of them won't appear ever again; and the rest of the movie continues in some distant small town. At the end, two main characters are returning home, but we don't see it - we can read a poem instead and the ending credits appear. If there was some dramatic climax that happened and thus ended the movie, that would be understandable, but nothing really happens (except that the boy reveals the reality about his grandfather and his lies, but both characters don't seem to care too much).
If the director ever makes some masterpieces, it would be interesting to watch this movie for understanding his roots. But till then...
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