If Patricia Highsmith had ever written a coming-of-age story set on the rocky, clear-watered Croatian coastline, it might have looked a lot like Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović’s bright, brooding debut, Murina.
It makes the compelling case that even without labyrinthine murder plots or hard-bitten private eyes, a young girl's passage into adulthood can be the perfect, darkly dazzling vehicle for a sunshine noir.
When the handsome millionaire Javier arrives he becomes for Julija a means of escape from the island to live a bigger life out in the world.
The gorgeously shot film, named after the eel (murina, a local delicacy) that the father and daughter bring up from the ocean bed, is a wriggly, sensuous delight.