It’s impossible not to think of ‘Signs’ watching ‘The Shelter’. Also in other films, but especially in that of M. Night Shyamalan. As in that one, in this series we find a (more numerous) family that lives in a remote ranch that, mostly, from a distance, through television or the Internet, contemplates with more or less credulity as “something strange “It’s happening in the world. What is true and what is not? What is really happening? Is that ranch some kind of refuge… as its title suggests? These are the three main questions that ‘The Shelter’ plays with over six episodes, an intriguing science-fiction series with its feet on the ground and more attached to its characters than to ornamental elements. A tense calm marked by the different events that nuance family ties and highlight the characters. Because, as in the aforementioned 2002 film, in the end the most important and relevant thing is and continues to be the family. The authentic reason for being (who and how we are). If experience is a degree, our personal experience is (almost) everything. ‘The Haven’ cleverly plays its cards right to keep us intrigued even though, essentially, not much happens (or is not shown). A kind of long and calm wait whose uncertainty is based on, precisely, not knowing what we are waiting for. In the daily doubt, as reasonable as sometimes capricious, about to what extent our small, reduced and personal field of vision can give us a credible or accurate image of anything. It could be said -and I am going to say it- that ‘The Shelter’ is a series about the perception of “reality” and the interpretation of “truth”, and how all this conditions our personal relationships; especially with the family, those who are by themselves. A calm and sober production whose Mexican accent provides a stimulating variant to the usual paradigms of a genre, almost always spoken in English, that works with that tempered warmth that can turn a refuge (or a series) into a home. And vice versa.
‘The shelter’ – Lights in the sky
