Sévigné

The third Catalan Marta Balletbò-Coll movie and the second one I see, as I haven’t seen Darling, I sent Men to the Moon. I have to say that this one is a lot better than experimental Costa Brava, as the script is more interesting and has strong well-developed characters.

The story is about a woman Julia Berkowitz that after the death of her daughter becomes incapable of expressing her feelings and consequently can’t cry, can’t dream and can’t act, as she used to be an actress. She ends up directing plays and her life will change in many ways when she reads and decides to do the Marina Ferrer script Sévigné.

The story is supposedly to show romance between the two women, the director Julia and the play author Marina (played by Marta) , but I have a hard time seeing in the movie any romance between those two, to me they behave more like teacher and student and coincidentally that is what Balletbò-Coll said in an interview. But in the same interview she also says that she does an analysis of desire with its different levels and shows a falling in love process. I could not see any of this!

Still with or without romance between the two characters, the movie is entertaining and with a quirky sense of humor that some American critics relate Marta as the Catalan Woody Allen (???) I don’t think they are related, but dialogue is intelligent and has some quotes I will remember, like what Gerardo, Julia husband, says: “You don’t love me, you admire me as much as I admire you … what do you want, that we admire each other for the rest of our lives?” This is just an example of the kind of black/dark humor and peculiar dialogue they use.

The movie is inspired by the real Madame Sévigné story and won 3 awards and 1 nomination in the Catalan Butaca Awards.

As a lesbian interest movie, no I did not like it; but as a mainstream drama/comedy, yes I did enjoy the story and especially the dialogue.