Year: 1985
Duration: 01:24:01
Directed by: Fina Torres
Actors: Doris Wells, Daniela Silverio, Rafael Briceno, Mirtha Borges
Language: Spanish | French (English hardsubbed)
Country: Venezuela | France
Also known as: Oriane
Description: Maria returned to Venezuela to sell a small house of her died aunt Oriana. In this house, she spent a lot of time. Wiping the dust off the old stuff, traveling on the waves of memory, Maria takes the mystery out of the events, misunderstood it as a child …
Review: If the story told Finoy Torres in her debut film, remove the numerous vignettes, Gothic bas-reliefs and sculptures of other nonsense, then the rest will fall in the dry plot that would look perfectly at the heart of the traditional Latin American series for housewives: unrequited love, mesalliance, weighed down by familial secret , sighs, groans, moans and lots of experience. But that’s the whole point, that to get to this melodramatic framework through a series of puzzles, innuendo, hints and almost mystical revelations, the film will be proposed by the authors are not interesting. Moreover, the answer to all the questions given in the final, a little disappointed. Because the “Oriana” – is a prime example of the case where the shape is much more important than content. And the way that tells the story of an old hacienda, hiding in the walls of many hidden secrets, a lot of interesting clues. Not by chance at the time of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, enchanted elegance of the narrative, then handed the young Venezuelan kinematografistke prize for the best debut film.
The style of painting Fina Torres is based on the principle of dolls: the plot is hiding under one another, and that in turn carries a third. They gradually recovered to the light to form a slender line, ending the smallest, but the most important story – the one from which all others have grown, giving rise to a whole series of puzzles that are trying to unravel the film’s heroine Mary, which was inherited from her aunt Oriana old hacienda, lost somewhere in the Venezuelan jungle. While living with her husband in faraway France, a young woman has long forgotten how once as a child spent several days in the house, but when she get to the estate to take possession, in her memory beginning to revive the ghosts of the past.
If that were the ghosts of the past Mary herself, reception applied Finoy Torres would be hard to recognize the original, but in the memory of the heroine of the movie come to life, not only her memories – through the prism of childhood experiences gradually grows memory Oriana, who had spent all his life in the walls of the hacienda alone. And this memory keeps a lot of secrets. The narrative falls as if the past: sometimes slow and gradual, sometimes sudden jump – and these tours draw on the screen curlicue of which is gradually taking shape solitaire plot. Why, it’s the traditional Latin American melodramatic plot, which eventually turns out to be buried under layers of secrets and mysteries of the old manor.
Mysterious noises and squeaks, ghostly shadows, which rise from obscurity objects come to life portraits and photos of the cut – the entire film is literally permeated with a sense of magic and mysticism, in full accordance with the traditions of Latin American magical realism. But where Borges or Cortazar spirit world comes into contact with the human world, creating a kind of ghostly interaction, Torres remains standing on solid ground. Supernatural she did not cross the invisible boundary, leaving only a hint, a beautiful and mysterious pattern on the fabric of the narrative, which does not change its essence. But if this pattern was not, the fabric would have remained just an unpainted cloth: it is possible, stout, but unbearably dull.
Immersing you into the depths of consciousness first Mary-adult, then Mary-girl after Oriana, adult, and, finally, Oriana, girls, Torres draws a luxurious fabric, keep your eyes on where you do not want at all. Just as you do not want and find a way out of the labyrinth drawn by solving puzzles. This is concluded and the main strength and main weakness of the film. It captures not let go of yourself, envelops the unique atmosphere and gorgeous visuals. But at the same time does not interest the story. His secrets you do not want to solve, empathize with his characters, and a spectacular finale, on which the director no doubt made a serious bid is perceived simply “note”. However, this is exactly the case when the shortcomings are a continuation of merit. Look away from the screen is not possible, it would be desirable to review the picture again and again, over and over again opening up new parts and pieces of previously unnoticed, as if standing before the canvas of the great painter. And if the movie was called “living pictures” that Fina Torres managed to stop a moment his picture. And the skill with which she cranked the trick is genuine admiration.
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