The new of Pillar Dovecote After winning the Goya, it has arrived in San Sebastián like a hurricane that has carried away any other type of conversation. Everyone talks about ‘La maternal’, her reflection on teenage motherhood that has torn most of those who have seen it with the portrait of a reality that impeccably manages to impregnate the viewer with the overflow of Carla, a girl who is rage made person and who has no choice but to learn to be mother.
Not only is there talk of Concha de Oro, but the public has been captivated by the new proposal of the directorbut I have to confess a small festival sin: the only thing I’ve felt watching ‘La maternal’ was the desire to leave the theater.
I went to the riverbank
‘La maternal’ has undeniable findingsstarting with that Carla Quílez who in her first leading role overwhelms the screen with the brave force and contempt that can only be had at fourteen, the impertinence, the immaturity, the feeling that the whole world should be at your feet Y the frustration of feeling condemnation in the form of a baby that won’t stop crying.
The actress is absolutely wonderful and knows how to give a very complicated character, bordering on the unpleasant, a layer of compassion and kindness that is not in the textmore focused on showing her slow learning and full of obstacles in which she pretends to be a normal teenager while raising her baby with Magnificent companions in their spontaneity but who get stiff when it comes to reciting the script.
And it is that ‘La maternal’ totally fails when, in its criticism of patriarchy, ditch subtlety altogether: the characters recite, one by one, the obstacles and obstacles that have led them to that situation. Mistreatment, abuse, absent partners… The scene, which should be full of vindication and emotion, turns into simple recited soliloquies more as a way to get rid of the girls’ stories than as a time to discover them. It is a forced, elongated and unnecessary resource: the acts of the protagonists of the film already speak for themselves.
Motherhood in the times of TikTok
Carla only thinks about dancing to the sound of reggaeton, uploading her videos to social networks, partying with her friends, seeing her best friend again (and father of her child), not putting up with Chispas, her mother’s new boyfriend. , Y sing Estopa at full volume. But all her dreams are watered down by continuous baby cries that, very consciously, permeate the entire tape, as a reminder that the teenage whirlwind has to be forcefully put on hiatus for a few months.
It’s not easy being responsible at fourteenand much less in the days of TikTok (Palomero talks about Instagram, but does not refer to Instagram), but Carla goes beyond irresponsibility. His absolute unconsciousness, his tidal wave of sensationsher duality between adolescent and mother, leads the character to a complexity -at times- unbearable and little understandable, which she continually delegates to others so as not to feel overwhelmed by what is happening around her, but above all inside her.
Carla sees in her mother a reflection of what she does not want to be and, at the same time, of what she is condemned to repeat: a figure who is there but is not, who passively wants and is more tired than excited about life, destroyed by her decision to, well, keep her daughter. A mother whom Carla breaks into pieces every so often, condemned to (not) understand each other. This relationship, as natural, intimate and strange as all adolescent mother-child relationships areis the best part of a film that affects the most tearful drama creating unease in the viewer.
The bonfire of feelings
‘La maternal’ is ready to burn all boats. She is perfectly aware that the protagonist is unbearable in her wild adolescence.that listening to a crying baby is not a dish of good taste for anyone (even less, I add, in a show at half past eight in the morning) and that the continuous screams, slights and dramas accumulate in the viewer’s head getting into the same pot that is the mind of its protagonist: a jumble of moments in which anxiety and restlessness grow.
Personally, the drama that Palomero proposes seems excessive and somewhat obscene to me As for its very little subtlety and the continuous screaming, but, as much as any letter board did not like the proposal, it is undeniable that the film has everything to destroy. The director’s narrative tsunami, in which refuses to focus on one story, preferring to form a character portrait out of scrapsis risky and exciting within its apparent simplicity.
‘La maternal’ is a teen drama for all ages disguised as a collection of stories and anecdotes, with an apparently chaotic but notoriously measured construction. In the midst of a fever for the stories of adolescent girls told by female directors (only at the festival have we seen ‘El agua’, ‘Secaderos’ or even the most destructive ‘Cerdita’), ‘La maternal’ is ready to be defining. And a hurricane doesn’t care if you like it or not: it just happens.