F/F Friday: Elisa y Marcela
Jun. 14th, 2019 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerIsabel Coixet is a director whose name I’ve read again and again since I started my women film directors project, so I was thrilled when I discovered that Netflix had a new original movie by her: Elisa y Marcela, the story of two women in early 20th century Spain who got married after one of them dressed as a man.
(Totally shallow note: Elisa makes a very fetching man.)
Did the movie live up to my expectations? Well, yes and no. The movie is beautifully shot in crisp black and white with lots of arresting visuals: the girls splashing each other on the beach in the early days of their relationship, the dreamlike sequence where they read their love letters to the camera while they’re separated for teacher’s training, the scene where they have sex and one of them has an octopus draped over her shoulder…
That one may be arresting in the wrong way, but you certainly do remember it.
However, after the love letters sequence, a sense of dread descends over the movie which is probably inevitable but nonetheless unpleasant. Elisa and Marcela have been reunited in a small town where they teach, and the townsfolk begin to have Suspicions about their relationship. I kept waiting for them to be beaten or raped, neither of which materialized, but there is a scene where the townsfolk gather around their house and break all the windows with rocks while Marcela and Elisa-dressed-as-cousin-Mario cower inside.
It’s actually kind of a relief when they get arrested after fleeing to Portugal: not only do you feel that at last the axe has fallen, but the people of Portugal seem really surprisingly sympathetic to their plight. (Women keep bringing gifts to the prison for them.) Was Portugal that much more liberal than Spain, or were they sympathetic in the general spirit of “Fuck the Spanish”?
(Totally shallow note: Elisa makes a very fetching man.)
Did the movie live up to my expectations? Well, yes and no. The movie is beautifully shot in crisp black and white with lots of arresting visuals: the girls splashing each other on the beach in the early days of their relationship, the dreamlike sequence where they read their love letters to the camera while they’re separated for teacher’s training, the scene where they have sex and one of them has an octopus draped over her shoulder…
That one may be arresting in the wrong way, but you certainly do remember it.
However, after the love letters sequence, a sense of dread descends over the movie which is probably inevitable but nonetheless unpleasant. Elisa and Marcela have been reunited in a small town where they teach, and the townsfolk begin to have Suspicions about their relationship. I kept waiting for them to be beaten or raped, neither of which materialized, but there is a scene where the townsfolk gather around their house and break all the windows with rocks while Marcela and Elisa-dressed-as-cousin-Mario cower inside.
It’s actually kind of a relief when they get arrested after fleeing to Portugal: not only do you feel that at last the axe has fallen, but the people of Portugal seem really surprisingly sympathetic to their plight. (Women keep bringing gifts to the prison for them.) Was Portugal that much more liberal than Spain, or were they sympathetic in the general spirit of “Fuck the Spanish”?
no subject
Date: 2019-06-14 06:26 pm (UTC)I don't think the movie needed to address those points--I understand its focus--but I'm curious.
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Date: 2019-06-14 06:47 pm (UTC)I kind of assumed that the donations from the kindly women of Portugal paid for their little farm in the pampas, but that question didn't bother me the same way. I think it's because of that difference between left-behind questions and untouched-on things; I'm willing to accept the latter because they rarely feel like they're dangling the same way.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-14 07:26 pm (UTC)Do you think Ana stays with them or goes back to Portugal?
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Date: 2019-06-14 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-16 01:29 am (UTC)--Love love love this