:: MOVIE LOG

las hijas de abril

2017 ★ michel franco

valeria is a 17-year-old girl who is 7 months pregnant. she lives with her sister, clara, near the beach. valeria and her boyfriend, miguel, are happy while they wait for their baby. unfortunately, the three struggle to make ends meet, and clara advises valeria to ask their mother for help. valeria isn’t enthusiastic about that idea since she hasn’t spoken to her mother at all, not even to tell her about her pregnancy. but she eventually accepts, and her mother returns to their life…

this film could have been good, but i’ve now seen how miguel franco loses the way and focuses on things that he shouldn’t or doesn’t make them land well without throwing us something else. the man has good concepts but poor executions, unfortunately.

if you have a spider-sense like me, you’ll notice 100% what’s going to happen. i do applaud that franco had a good ‘bad’ character such as abril, who looks like her brain already pathed a way to achieve her goal since the beginning. miguel is a fucking idiot who, tbh, didn’t give anything but serve as a plot device. abril’s reasoning is not explained in any way, but her real attitude towards her daughters is subtly shown since she first appears. with clara, for example, it shows how disgusting abril finds clara’s weight and eventually makes her exercise and get laxatives. unfortunately, clara’s response for this is not seen in the movie, and she doesn’t get any attention after that, which is a shame. we have two sisters with different struggles, but there’s no impact of that on camera: also, clara and miguel aren't an organic piece in the media who have their desires and goals. they're a device for one of the main protagonists, and fell rather dull and useless..

there’s no explanation or backstory, and clara is just there. and i’m not someone who likes everything explained by the characters (as we’ve seen how directors are doing in recent movies), but there’s nothing but a few hints that let you wonder what clara or miguel thought during or after what's happening... yes, movies were there's not many amount of dialogues or poetic dialogues can picture the character's struggles (like the pianist<3), but michel tries to mimick this type of films and fails to understand them, thus his execution is very poor and relies on specific scenes to show shock, rather than have a momentum.

abril is the strongest character in the movie, and no wonder since she’s the one getting the main focus throughout the movie. the act of being a good mother who tries to help her daughters by taking care of everything, even taking care of the baby to do after what she does, was good, imho, since you can notice she started to work to get what she wants. valeria gets the spotlight after that happens, but her presence is not as strong, and it feels as if franco remembered he had another main character who needed to finish the movie somehow? lol which also you can see what she's trying to do, but how this ended was so lackluster and didn't tie anything together? also miguel's fate is so boring and nonimportant because he's a fucking idiot lmfao and abril taking advantage of his stupidity or 'innocence' as you want to see it, looks ridiculous.

the ending was predictable, imho. but i didn't expect abril to abandon the baby LOL? perhaps it explained more about her erratic behavior and how after something doesn't go as she wants, she dips out immediately?. also, you can see this as a high-budget telenovela who tries to be serious lol. not that bad of a movie, but the lack of porpuseful dialogues and filler characters do make this film rather mediocre. good concept, bad execution!!! i guess i'm harsher with mexican movies but quiero ver más películas mexicanas buenas y que no existan solo para imitar otros estilos cinematográficos!!!

perhaps abril wanted another chance in life and act like a young girl again, since she mentions having a child while she was young. she wanted to steal her daughter’s life—and, well, a mom who wants to act like she’s young young never ends well, as we see with some people on tiktok…

secret ceremony

1968 ★ joseph losey

this movie is a good fever dream where you are so confused but at the same time, having a good ride.

leonora, a prostitute who mourns her daughter, meets cenci, a girl who has lost her mother and calls leonora ‘mommy’ because she resembles her mother. cenci takes leonora to her mansion, who’s only resident is cenci. soon, leonora will learn about cenci’s current life with her two aunts and her filthy step-dad…

the shots and the costumes are preciousssssss. this film is a work of art idc. the colors look gorgeous through the screen and also transmit this surreal feeling thanks to the design of the mansion’s indoors. the playful and child-like behavior of cenci sends these flickering red lights of something being wrong but we don’t see the real harm. throughout the film there’s not a sense of coherency because the characters themselves feed the delusions both of the protagonist are in. leonora attempts to ground herself a few times and understand what’s going on, but, since cince is a girl who prefers to play inside her bubble and reject whatever breaks her comfort, leonora plays the part of a mother once again and have a better life with a girl who clearly begs for a mother figure but also shows the consequences of an unresolved trauma from her childhood.

this review in letterbox summarizes the film pretty well: “of course a man has to come in and try to ruin an incestuous not really incestuous relationship between an older woman and her girltoy. can women have anything.” and i agree.

the man —who’s name i don’t remember lol— is our character who gets to break the fragile relationship between leonora and cenci by having an unhealthy attention for the latter. i find it funny how everyone, even cenci’s aunts, are surprised by leonora’s resemblance to cenci’s mother, but there’s no more digging into this weird coincidence. but either way, the dude wants a life with cenci, and how could the fucker wouldn’t when he states what he has done to cenci and how he still takes advantage of the girl even after her mother dies, and takes cenci’s behavior as her wanting it. imho, he is the ‘thing’ that makes us see cenci as this girl with ugly intentions and the usual young ‘nymph’ that men seem to be obsessed with, when the truth is that cenci begs for a figure to love her and protect her, but her being abused in her younger years have morphed that love as a need of something sexual.

i looooved the ending. who doesn’t love fed up women being the ones punishing the filthy men in these type of films? i support u leonora!!!

después de lucía

2012 ★ michel franco

alejandra and her dad move to méxico's city after her mom died. both of them try to surpass their grief however they can without making the other carry the weight of their mental troubles and problems in their daily life. she makes friends at school, which later turn out to be her 'punishers.'

this film is filled with silence, a somber atmosphere and hopelessness. the relationship between ale and her dad is bittersweet because both are really trying to be present, but there's a distance that cannot be closed. when i see things i try not to relate to it too much to not give an opinion based on my own experiences (bc nobody cares), but seeing their relationship on camera just hit me lol. because, what's after my mom dies? my days would be filled with silence, just like alejandra's life. in that regard, the scenes with them both are unfortunate? and hit too close to home.

and, because they're already living through their grief, not one of them decides to confide in each other about what bad thing happened that day to not worry the other. and this is a reason for alejandra to keep silent about the bullying and all the abuse she's suffering every day at school because the guy she had sex with leaked their video. there's this depressing resignation coming from her at some point.

i liked the shots: they are the usual shots in often-silent movies that try to replicate real-life misery and cruelty, but try to maximize it. the cake scene was disgusting, and rage baited me. in general, the scenes where abuse is depicted were obviously uncomfortable and not-that-exaggerated imho. although at one point this plot + the silent scenes with alejdrana feels repetitive at some point without having a goal? i'm not sure, but everything that has to be endured doesn't have a conclusion that's satisfying, that being in the revenge done by the dad or how the characters end up. and i don't mean i wanted a hero ending where there's justice, but everyone feels underdeveloped.

unfortunately, this movie suffers from a lack of development? it felt empty, as if it was just filled with short scenes without further development like when the dad knows nobody from the justice system will help him to get onto the 'shock' scenes, and thus, the progress to reach the ending felt like a comedy sketch? like... how are you going to let a man take your child? LOL i felt the director didn't know how to reach that part, develop it, or who to punish. all the scenes between the dad and the guy feel like a speedrun to the ending. but the ending scene was pleasant? the silence from the dad, the sound of the ocean waves, the fadeout to the credits... the director has good concepts but fails to develop them well.

spoiler about the ending: the scenes where alejandra reaches her past home felt like we were seeing her desire to return to the place where her mother lived, to where things were not like this and she could lay in bed and just be.

and i will cut it here because i would be writing a long rambling that will get nowhere, so i'll just say it's a decent mexican movie. i'll watch more from michel franco since a lot of mexican people hate him LOL