Alma tries to wake Olpa
The first scene in the film, Alma tries to wake Olpa.
Spoiler alert:
She can't.
The film opens with Alma beside her grandfather (Olpa – as in, "Old Pa") in the trailer where they have lived together essentially in isolation. His breathing has become weak and uneven, and when it finally stops, Alma tries to wake him. But some part of her already understands what has happened. It is a very small scene, but it establishes the loss that pushes the rest of the film forward: before Alma can discover the wider world, she first has to lose the only world she has known.
There's a challenge in storytelling that's essentially – the audience is not going to care about the death of a character they've never even heard speak. So our emotional reaction has to come entirely from Alma.
