Summary
During the Spanish Civil war, Ana, a young girl living in a small, isolated village, lives her life in through her imagination while trying to understand the world around her.
My Thoughts
There isn’t much of a conventional plotline to follow in this film. Most of the time we spend with Ana and her family is spent doing banal things; eating, going to school, walking through the fields and forests, seeing a movie. This is a character-based film where most of the characters say very little to each other. It’s incredibly well done, but this is not a film that I’d recommend to people that aren’t used to sitting through art films. It’s slow and plodding, some might say boring. But it’s deliberate pace is absolutely necessary. Though the film is just north of an hour and a half, it feels longer. There are long takes where no one says anything- in fact whole scenes and arcs happen with barely any dialogue- and much of the action is focused on the mundane existence Ana’s family leads. These takes allow the viewer to reflect on and ponder what is happening, and how Ana and her sister, Isabel, see the world. This film allows the viewer to interpret what Ana is thinking and how she processes things, and in doing so, it opens us up to looking at the word in a different way.
(SOME SPOILERS IN THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH)
The film starts with a truck coming into the town. It’s carrying the new movie that will be played at the town hall. This time, the film they’re carrying is “Frankenstein” (1931). Ana and Isabel are swept away by the picture, but Ana, who is slightly younger than Isabel, seems to be frightened of some of the images they show. After the film is finished, Isabel and Ana return home, but the scene when Frankenstein’s monster accidentally kills the young girl haunts Ana, and she asks Isabel why the monster killed the girl, and then why the villagers killed the monster at the end. Isabel responds by saying that no one died really; it was just a movie. Isabel tells Ana that she’s seen the monster, he lives in an abandoned farm home not far from their house. Ana is intrigued, and spends most of the rest of the film looking for clues regarding the monster’s existence.
(SPOILERS END)
‘Show don’t tell’ is one of the first rules they teach you at film school. This film certainly succeeds in accomplishing that goal. As I mentioned above, there is very little dialogue in this film. The family we follow is more or less broken. Their father, Fernando (Fernando Fernan Gomez) is quiet and withdrawn, he spends much of his time tending to his bees or locked away in his study. Teresa (Teresa Gimpera), the girl’s mother, is having an affair with a man who went away to war, but she hasn’t heard from him in some time, and it’s implied that she doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead. I want to point out that it is never said that Teresa is having an affair- we’re shown a letter once, and there is one scene were she goes to the train and watches it leave, implying her lover is on the train. In fact, Teresa’s entire character arc takes place without her saying a word to change her character; the change is entirely internal. Isabel (Isabel Telleria) is the person closest to Ana, but even she is difficult to get along with. Isabel likes to taunt Ana for seemingly no reason, but we guess, later on, that this might just be Isabel’s personality (she chokes a cat for a while before letting it live). It’s sort of implied that Isabel might have seen more images from the war, and in a way it messed her up. Because the rest of her family is off doing their own thing, Ana is forced to come up with reasons things are the way they are, and as a result, the world she imagines becomes frightening and strange, and she isn’t really sure how to deal with it.
Another thing this movie touches on is the effect of war on the surrounding countryside (funny, because earlier this week I reviewed “Come and See” (1985), and strangely that film focused on the same things, and from a child’s perspective, no less). It’s rare that we get films that use this perspective- children aren’t the most exciting protagonists to follow during war films. But in this film, the war acts not as a foreground piece, but as a sort of shadow-villain. Though war hangs like a black storm over the whole town, it never really comes to the village. We see the effects of war on the people of the town; the people are worn out looking and the town is falling into disrepair. There is nothing to do but go to school or work or the movies, and the movies are really their only source of escape or enjoyment. Though “Frankenstein” frightens Ana, we get the idea that usually the films are among her greatest joys in life. The people in the town rarely smile at anything, but they are almost ecstatic when the new film comes in on the truck. In doing a bit of reading after the film, someone else mentioned that the only other time Ana smiles is when she comes across a poisonous mushroom. I took this to imply that she takes joy in knowing that if worse comes to worst, if the world makes less and less sense to her, then there is always suicide as a way out.
Verdict
There is beauty in the simplicity of this film. It’s quiet, but it is extremely passionate about trying to find understanding in the life we’ve been given. It’s a love letter to those that make up stories to better understand reality, to innocence lost, and to childhood in general. I would absolutely recommend this film, but be prepared for minimalist dialogue, long takes, and subtle hints that move the characters forward. This is a film that deserves to be seen, but only if you’ve got the patience to wade through it.
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