Sorry for my lousy English. This is a largely overlooked and underrated piece of work by late Spanish writer, director and actor Fernando Fernán-Gomez from the early years of Censorship-proof cinema brought on with Democracy in Spain, in the late seventies of twentieth century. Too bad it aired with little attention from audiences that wanted to watch "bigger-than-life" exploitation explicit material that became available by that time, better than a deep insight into the most horrendous side of human nature. Not the same.
Perhaps this is due to the bizarre nature of the events it accounts for, however a real story that shocked Spanish society during a pre-civil war period known as "Second Republic" back in 1934. Hildergart Rodriguez Carballeira, a wide-known gifted and talented girl: writer, head of the Socialist Party, able to speak six languages at six, to major in school earlier than expected, to play piano and so forth, was shot to death at seventeen by her mother Aurora at her parenting home in Madrid, who would rapidly render herself to justice, acknowledging her terrible crime.
But instead of showing any remorse, she faces both the Jury and her own attorney for several times in the film so empowered and self- reassured you believe her: It had to be done. Ice cold. The same Victor Frankenstein would have answered if ever asked why he'd kill his creature in the end. There is no story- spoiling way to explain this movie, since the main event happens at the beginning.
We will learn retrospectively how her daughter was the victim of a particularly neglecting narcissistic mother, being the latter herself brought up in a dysfunctional family as well. This woman will seek an eventual sexual partner to impregnate her with a seed for the Girl amongst the girls, a unique being conceived to defend feminism and liberal ideas and to promote Eugenesia around the world, being all those concepts on fashion at the new republican times. This child would be her animated doll, like she was promised to as a child by her own father long ago. And she will bring her up all alone. With consequences that we foresee will go wrong.
So this daughter, named Hildergart (sic) ( a made-up from German ¨Garden of Wisdom", as Aurora tells her prison in-mates while she waits for trial ) is certainly gifted and talented, but she is as well human, so becomes involved with such things as politics and love and really has a most promising world ahead her. This will prove Aurora that her piece of art is alive by itself thus provoking the narcissistic spree of getting her killed, maybe enhanced by her own daughter after a bitter discussion overnight, when she tells mummy she is leaving tomorrow. "Not much time, she says, if you're going to get your way along", watching at her mother holding a gun. That is just how pure –minded and brave Hildergart was. Her mother had just tried before, but collapsed over her sleeping daughter, invading her intimacy for the last time. But now, after a while, just before dawn, she just shot.
Wonderfully acted by Amparo Soler Leal who, as Aurora, brings upon the mystery hidden inside delirium. And not only that: she delivers a very insightful and self-aware persona that will prove both the jury in the movie and the audience one single fact: No matter how dreadful her deeds, she's clearly had her point made. She will baffle a trio of experts on paranoia at court in a funny yet revealing scene. Isabel Roldán plays Hildergart like a Spanish Ava Gardner, she is as gifted as can be, just like Hildergart, and gives her character the strength to show us what it would be like for her had not she been murdered. The director tells us this weird and tragic story in a very unassumingly neutral approach that will not ditch the most unsettling sexual implications in the traits this destructive mother applies, using a fragmented backwards story- telling technique. The use of sepia canvass flash-back scenes help the viewer figure out how dysfunctional was everything from scratch, but there is no moral analysis in it any other than beholding how the story comes about in Aurora's own speech along the trial. It is not a Court film, neither is a Murder one. Should it be deemed "Cult"?
Maybe not for everybody, but a must-see either you are interested in this striking story from the beginning of last century Deep-Spain or in a very realistic portrait of narcissistic parents neglecting taken to its last. Worth an eight.
Perhaps this is due to the bizarre nature of the events it accounts for, however a real story that shocked Spanish society during a pre-civil war period known as "Second Republic" back in 1934. Hildergart Rodriguez Carballeira, a wide-known gifted and talented girl: writer, head of the Socialist Party, able to speak six languages at six, to major in school earlier than expected, to play piano and so forth, was shot to death at seventeen by her mother Aurora at her parenting home in Madrid, who would rapidly render herself to justice, acknowledging her terrible crime.
But instead of showing any remorse, she faces both the Jury and her own attorney for several times in the film so empowered and self- reassured you believe her: It had to be done. Ice cold. The same Victor Frankenstein would have answered if ever asked why he'd kill his creature in the end. There is no story- spoiling way to explain this movie, since the main event happens at the beginning.
We will learn retrospectively how her daughter was the victim of a particularly neglecting narcissistic mother, being the latter herself brought up in a dysfunctional family as well. This woman will seek an eventual sexual partner to impregnate her with a seed for the Girl amongst the girls, a unique being conceived to defend feminism and liberal ideas and to promote Eugenesia around the world, being all those concepts on fashion at the new republican times. This child would be her animated doll, like she was promised to as a child by her own father long ago. And she will bring her up all alone. With consequences that we foresee will go wrong.
So this daughter, named Hildergart (sic) ( a made-up from German ¨Garden of Wisdom", as Aurora tells her prison in-mates while she waits for trial ) is certainly gifted and talented, but she is as well human, so becomes involved with such things as politics and love and really has a most promising world ahead her. This will prove Aurora that her piece of art is alive by itself thus provoking the narcissistic spree of getting her killed, maybe enhanced by her own daughter after a bitter discussion overnight, when she tells mummy she is leaving tomorrow. "Not much time, she says, if you're going to get your way along", watching at her mother holding a gun. That is just how pure –minded and brave Hildergart was. Her mother had just tried before, but collapsed over her sleeping daughter, invading her intimacy for the last time. But now, after a while, just before dawn, she just shot.
Wonderfully acted by Amparo Soler Leal who, as Aurora, brings upon the mystery hidden inside delirium. And not only that: she delivers a very insightful and self-aware persona that will prove both the jury in the movie and the audience one single fact: No matter how dreadful her deeds, she's clearly had her point made. She will baffle a trio of experts on paranoia at court in a funny yet revealing scene. Isabel Roldán plays Hildergart like a Spanish Ava Gardner, she is as gifted as can be, just like Hildergart, and gives her character the strength to show us what it would be like for her had not she been murdered. The director tells us this weird and tragic story in a very unassumingly neutral approach that will not ditch the most unsettling sexual implications in the traits this destructive mother applies, using a fragmented backwards story- telling technique. The use of sepia canvass flash-back scenes help the viewer figure out how dysfunctional was everything from scratch, but there is no moral analysis in it any other than beholding how the story comes about in Aurora's own speech along the trial. It is not a Court film, neither is a Murder one. Should it be deemed "Cult"?
Maybe not for everybody, but a must-see either you are interested in this striking story from the beginning of last century Deep-Spain or in a very realistic portrait of narcissistic parents neglecting taken to its last. Worth an eight.