Одеяние самоцветов (Manto de gemas)

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[программа основного конкурса

берлинского фестиваля]

Год 2022

Страна Мексика, Аргентина, США

Жанр драма

Время 01:58

Премьера 11 февраля 2022, Берлин

Режиссура Наталья Лопес Гайардо

Сценарий Наталья Лопес Гайардо

Камера Адриан Дюрасо

Монтаж Наталья Лопес Гайардо

В ролях

Найлеа Норвинд · Антониа Оливарес · Аида Роа

Описание

История выстроена вокруг Изабель и её семьи, которые переезжают на виллу её матери после пропажи последней.

От былого блеска ничего не осталось — дом опустел и разваливается. И именно здесь начинает трещать по швам брак Изабель.

Пока дети налаживают родительские отношения, героиня пытается спасти домработницу, которая была вынуждена обеспечивать семью,

помогая местным бандитам. Но больше всего пострадали те, кто потерял представление о том, что значит иметь дом.

 

Наталья Лопес Гайардо — некогда монтажёрка фильмов Карлоса Рейгадаса, Амата Эскаланте и Лисандро Алонсо — попала в основной

конкурс Берлинского кинофестиваля с дебютным фильмом. Причина не в прошлых заслугах кинематографистки, а в высочайшем

качестве её картины, скрещивающей литературный психологизм и сомнамбулическую атмосферу провинциальной Мексики.

Изменено 20.02.2022 16:40 пользователем empathy

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vBulletin [media]

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caitlin quinlan (reverse shot, mubi, lwlies, sight & sound, frieze)

There have been some amazing films coming out of Mexico by women filmmakers lately (e.g. Tatiana Huezo, Fernanda Valadez/Astrid Rondero) and Natalia Lopez’s ROBE OF GEMS here at the #Berlinale2022 is another brilliant example of such atmospheric, disquieting cinema

ioncinema: 3,5/5

Lopez’s stylistic choices remain self-evident, but there’s an almost harsh reticence in how she continually undermines not only a certain arthouse convention, but the inherent apathy of those balanced precariously in this world on a wire. Lopez focuses on how class, privilege and social status tend to evaporate when the women connecting her narrative dare to employ any real sense of agency, highlighting their often chilling relationship to a power structure which demands their complicity. Oblique in ways which channel the cold austerity of Haneke more so than the shock value associated with her previous collaborations as editor, there’s a crushing sense of hopelessness bordering on the misanthropic in this languidly paced tale as easy to embrace artistically as it is to recoil from emotionally.

Slyly suggesting its intentions of genre before morphing into something more like estranged social realism, Robe of Gems plays a cold, cruel, and ultimately esoteric game with the missing persons melodrama. It’s a world to squirm away from, and in its final frames, the devastating finale instead brings a relief, or maybe just a drastic escape, recalling a famous line by Ray Bradbury, “It was a pleasure to burn.”

thefilmstage: b

Lopez writes in her director’s statement that her desire “is to refer to a spiritual wound and its psychological dimension—the one that is not visible.” It’s a great line that’s crucial to accepting the severity of the drama and its abject direness. Robe of Gems isn’t an easy film. Its harrowing content is devoid of optimism and its pacing ensures we wallow in the resulting suffering even if very little of it is actually shown on-screen. One could argue that keeping the abuse in the vacuum of jump cuts is hardly a service because it forces us to lose our own control over the proceedings. We must fear the worst while the silent tears of Olivares, Norvind, and Roa prove we’re correct in doing so.

thr

Lopez Gallardo reveals a keen eye for the destructive beauty of modern Mexico, with bodies popping up in sun-drenched garbage dumps or burning alive on hilltops, bathing in murky swimming pools or gyrating to techno under neon lights. But she tends to eschew straightforward storytelling for something so elusive that her film nearly escapes us for its first half, until the pieces gradually fit together and we manage to make some sense of the plot, if not entirely what the director is going for.

Such fleeting moments and impressions are not quite enough to pull the film together by the time it ends, leaving us with a vaguely tormented feeling rather than a bang, even if the last image is a powerful one that sticks in your mind. The dual influences of Reygadas, with all the equivocal, stylized directing, and Escalante, with the cruder moments of violence, are evident throughout Robe of Gems, yet it feels like Lopez Gallardo wasn’t able to find the correct path between them. She forges her own bold way, but loses us a bit in the process.

 

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vBulletin [media]

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Silver Bear Jury Prize, goes to "Robe of Gems" by Natalia Lopez Gallardo