In Pedro Rubio-Gonzales' charming documentary film, we're introduced to a young family, sadly on the brink of a (apparently amicable) break-up. Before leaving for Europe with his mother, the child spends some time with his father, fishing off the beautiful Mexican coast. 'Alamar' just watches the two of them together: whatever his flaws as a husband, the father is laid back, and at one both with nature and his son: their time together is relaxed and fundamentally healthy, albeit in the form of a holiday from the everyday reality of working for a living. This isn't an earth shattering movie: but it's affectionate and heart-warming.

Once in a while, a film appears that restores one's faith in the cinema as a medium, and reminds one of its possibilities for opening a window on a magical world. This is one such film. The film is unconventional, and proceeds at a slow pace certain to madden even further the madding crowd. But for those who like to know more about 'real life', especially in unfamiliar surroundings, this slice of life provides a unique vision. The main characters are a man and his son, and the man's elderly father. It seems that the man and his son really are just that, whereas the grandfather is an actor. The man is a Mexican 'of Mayan Indian descent', though he does not look like a Lacandone to me, so he must be from another tribe descended from the Maya of this particular region (the Lacandone, who are pure Maya, being much further inland, living in depths of the forests), and his son has come to visit him on the Mexican coast from his Italian mother, who lives in Rome. It is the boy's introduction to a timeless way of life which in many respects is thousands of years old. The setting is the remarkable Mexican heritage site of Banco Chinchorro, a coral reef in the sea near the ancient Maya centres of Quintana Roo and Cozumel, in the Caribbean off south-eastern Mexico. The father and grandfather live the lives of simple fishermen in a hut on stilts just off the shore. The film features a great deal of undersea photography showing them spearing lobsters on the seabed without oxygen tanks, but only snorkels. The young Mexican director Pedro Gonzalez Rubio, who studied at the London Film School, has made this amazing film with himself as writer, cameraman and editor, and apparently the assistance of only two other people apart from the cast. He says he wanted to show life 'in the middle of the sea, in the place of origins'. He certainly succeeded in doing that, for there is a timeless quality to this film. It makes such a difference in a feature film which is not a documentary to see real people doing real things in real places rather than the perpetual parade of illusion which is what feature films normally are. The life portrayed here in the house on stilts and in the sea, the lack of any watch or clock, the entire immersion in 'what happens naturally' (often personified as 'Nature') is a salutary lesson to us all, prisoners as we are of a rigidly systematized and over-structured reality which is really a false reality. The people in this film are living a dream, and it is a true dream, whereas we are living a nightmare, and it is a false one, a monstrous parody of life invented and enacted by maniacs. One of the touching emotional details in this film is the friendship between the boy and a wild egret whom he names Blancquita. Although the little white bird has yellow eyes, when the boy draws it, he gives it blue eyes. Frigate birds and a young crocodile also feature as characters in the film. Rubio is a poet, and his filmed poem is a masterpiece.

"Alamar" (2009) is directed, produced, filmed and edited by Pedro González-Rubio. In the film a young boy Natan spends some time with his father Jorge and grandfather Nestór before going to Italy with his mother. Natan and his father journey into the open waters and live in a small shack on the water in a secluded fishing village on the coast of Mexico. Natan is a bit uneasy at first about spending time with his father, but quickly grows accustom to the simple life of a fisherman. Everything about life in this village is so pure and calming – from the magnificent blue waters to the hammocks hanging in the small wooden shack that they live in. Father and son take time just being together and forming a relationship.The acting was superb and little Natan was super cute. Watching this movie was soothing and I really didn't want it to end. There wasn't a lot of action and the scenes were often a bit drawn out, but it was like watching real life. The one scene where they try to get Blanquita to jump onto Natan's hand is simple and beautiful – I could have watched that for half and hour.

Have you watched 'Fishing with John', John Lurie's tongue-in-cheek series of short documentaries, in each of which he takes one of his celebrity friends (Tom Waits, William Dafoe, Jim Jarmusch, etc.) fishing at an exotic location? This documentary is similar, only it's the real deal... There are no celebrities here and there's no messing around. You're invited to watch three generations of men (the youngest of which is a young boy called Natan) fishing freely off the coast of Mexico. For just over an hour you can forget about Facebook or Twitter, and observe what comes through as a beautiful, surprisingly bare way of life that is intrinsically connected to the wildlife and nature. Before Natan splits to Rome indefinitely with his Italian mother, his Mexican father and grandpa give the child a taste of what it's like to be a fisherman. Director Pedro González-Rubio does a great job at capturing on film the family's situation and a sense of the kind of memories that Natan is to carry with him across to Europe.