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Mexico · 2016
1h 38m
Director Natalia Almada
Starring Adriana Barraza
Genre
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For 35 years, Doña Flor has been a cog in the machine at her government office job. She’s become numb to life — until the death of her cat, her sole companion. Her routine interrupted, she finally faces the death of her daughter years earlier in this poetic story of an older woman’s reawakening.
Almada deserves credit for creating a portrait of a character so often passed over onscreen: Doña is a woman in her sixties with a decidedly unglamorous life. But the relentless darkness here (both figuratively and literally — some of the shots of Doña in her home are shrouded in blackness) often proves more alienating than illuminating.
Much of this quiet, slow-burn character study inhabits the dreary, remote quality of Doña’s existence, but with time, the movie pieces it together to reveal the emotional solitude lurking beneath that distant gaze.
Though the concept of the gendered gaze can be over-pushed in film theory circles, in this case there’s no mistaking Almada’s privileging of a woman’s perspective, with its sympathetic non-judgmental stance and sense of female solidarity.
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
A low-key character study whose gently repetitive rhythms mask an unusually keen sense of nuance and subtlety.
A chance encounter with Lola has Roland falling in love, but she may not return his feelings.
Naruto Shippuden