Film | Aurora (2021) - 45 mostra internacional de cinema de São Paulo

Aurora | 2021 | Paz Fabrega
(director and screenwriter)
with Rebeca Woodbridge
and Raquel Villalobos

 Luisa is an architect. A woman in her forties, she balances her career with a position teaching art classes to small children. Luisa is passionate about art, and she manages to instill this love in her young pupils, most of whom have no access to art classes in their schools or anywhere else. When she goes home, to an airy, spacious apartment, she splits her time between video-chatting to her long-distance boyfriend, Guille, and working on a choreography which she just can’t seem to finish.   

One day, when Luisa was in the school bathroom, washing clay off her hands, she heard someone going sick in one of the stalls. It was a teenager, Yuliana, a girl she recognized as the older sister of one of her students. On the floor, by the sinks, the girl had dropped a pill blister pack. Luisa recognized the drugs. The girl was trying to provoke an abortion. 

LUISA:

“Are you well? You should get checked because… Because if you were vomiting, you may have vomited the pills…”

YULIANA:

“I was told to wait 12 hours before going to a hospital”

LUISA:

“I wouldn’t take you to a hospital”

This was the beginning of the unlikely friendship between these two characters. 

Luisa took Yuliana to a doctor she trusted, and the doctor determined that Yuli was indeed pregnant -  not in the first few weeks of pregnancy, as the girl thought, but rather, in her 5th month. Too late, she said, for the pills to have any effect. Too late for anything other than hard choices.

Yuli is seventeen years old. Abortions are illegal in Costa Rica. Her mother doesn’t know about it and Yuli doesn’t want her to. None of her friends know. No one, except Luisa. And Luisa offers to help.

This movie could have been obvious in so many ways… It could have given Luisa a tragic backstory. It could have painted her as a woman who always wanted a daughter, but couldn’t have one. It could have shown her as a young girl, decades earlier, facing the same difficulties Yuliana is facing and offering her, in the present, the help she didn’t have back then. These things would have been obvious. Instead, the movie gives no explanation behind the reason why this successful, mature and independent architect would want to take a young girl like Yuli under her protection. It’s enough that she does.

Their relationship takes many forms. At times, Luisa is a friend, the only friend Yuli can talk to, a “girl” with whom she can hang out, laugh or go dancing on the beach. At other times, Luisa becomes a mother figure who accompanies Yuli on her doctor’s appointments and offers the girl advice, from the perspective of an older, more experienced woman. She does show, however, a degree of respect for Yuli’s individuality that’s uncharacteristic of any parent, and at times like this, she is more like an older sister, patiently listening to her little sister’s thoughts, recognizing, as the more mature of the two, that the younger one needs help, catching her when she falls and quietly supporting her in all of her decisions. She advises Yuli to tell her mother about the pregnancy but respects the girl’s decision to stay quiet.

When Yuli starts to show, it is Luisa who dissuades her from running away. The girl was waiting for her, on the front steps, when she came home from the construction site. She smiled and let her in, sitting across from Yuli while she told her of her plan to disappear. "May I touch it?" she asked, placing a hand on the girl's belly when she got closer, astounded at how much bigger she was, barely showing through her blouse, but much more so than when they last spoke. And she moved to sit by Yuli's side when she asked the girl to reconsider that plan. She did more than that: she gave Yuli keys, offering her house as sanctuary. And later Yuli tried on her clothes, while Luisa helped her choose which ones hid her bump better.

Beautiful framing in this scene, it makes it feel like we are spying on them, catching a glimpse of something we're not meant to see, a moment, that belongs only to them. I loved how this movie managed to create moments like this while avoiding all the cliches about pregnancy on screen, like making a fuss over the baby moving and things like that

I realize now that my description of their friendship makes the whole thing sounds a bit unrealistic. But it’s not like they were characters isolated in a fairy tale land that allowed for such an unlikely bond to form. Not at all. When Luisa’s boyfriend came home for an unexpected visit, Yuli’s constant presence in her apartment proved to be a disruption, as it would have been in reality, but again, there was no melodrama. Luisa chose that arrangement, there was no room for obvious arguments. It was as simple as that. Yuli’s mother was not a monster, and her friends seemed like a great bunch of people. She had options. But she needed Luisa. They fitted together. Once they found each other, there was no letting go. 

It would be a mistake to say that this movie is just a story without context. There are layers of commentary on real world issues, such as the lack of reproductive freedom for women in Latin American countries. But the movie is not about reproductive rights, any more than it is about teen pregnancy. All of this is subtext and set-up, it never feels forced or preachy, and the opinions of the writer, whatever they are, never push the story to the background. There is a clash between Yuliana’s family’s conservative views and Luisa’s progressive and worldly attitude. Yuli’s family, if they knew, would rather her give up on school to raise the baby rather than any other alternative. Luisa on the other hand, has a more progressive and worldly view. She worries about the girl being trapped in a future of limited possibilities and she is the one who introduces the idea of adoption. This clash, however, is never more important than the bond between Luisa and Yuli, and the ending, however hushed it seemed to me (I would have liked a little more) makes this abundantly clear. 

There's so many things I haven't touched on, because I don't want to spoil the movie too much... This is a scene of Yulia and her friends... I loved the way their relationship was depicted, full of physical contact, and little drama... It even had a scene with a water hose, similar to a scene I have written myself in one of my fics from long ago... 

If I have to highlight one negative aspect of this piece it would be the casting of the younger protagonist. Through her actions and dialogue, Yuli was never more than “the pregnant teenager”, and I really wish the character had become more interesting than that… Her eyes were always a bit empty, she never had much to say, and even her body language didn't mean much (apart from moments like that when she first went to Luisa's house, clutching the edges of her shorts). Perhaps it’s the way the character was written, but I wish she’d been more expressive, as she would have made a better counterpart for Luisa’s character. It would have elevated the movie, and added so much to the chemistry between the protagonists! 

Luisa, on the other hand, was great… On the construction site, talking to the engineers, she was a confident and capable professional. On the floor of her apartment, alone, she was the insecure, troubled artist, struggling to finish a choreography for music that only she could hear. With the kids in her class, she was the inspiring, whimsical art teacher, with paint stains on her clothes and fragments of clay on her hair. And yet, these aspects of her personality never felt disjointed or forced… Instead, they seemed real… Characters in stories are often oversimplified. They fall into stereotypes: “the career woman”, “the sensitive pre-school teacher”, “the failed artist”... It’s like in stories, nobody wants to be more than one thing. Luisa felt like a real person, with multitudes inside her. 

She was my favourite character in this movie. To me, it seemed like she had something true inside her, something she was trying to put out, to express artistically through her designs, her classes, her choreography… Her outlet, however, came in the unexpected sisterhood with Yuliana. In that relationship, all the aspects of Luisa came together. She was mature, kind, patient and loving. More than anything, however, she exuded warmth, and the little ways in which she expressed this made Aurora a delightful movie to watch. Like when she placed her hand lightly on Yuli's back, before taking her to the doctor for the first time, or how she looked at the girl, trying to understand what was in her mind, patiently waiting for Yuli to tell her, in her own time. It was a beautiful exploration of female friendship, of intergenerational friendship, and integrates a group of stories I am more and more interested in experiencing. 

Luisa had a vulnerability to her, and yet, it didn't detract from her maturity... I don't think I have seen this unusual mix of traits in a character of her age... It was beautiful to watch. 

All things considered, I really enjoyed this movie. It was slow-paced, perhaps too slow at times, but it was exactly the type of character-driven story I was looking forward to when this year’s festival started. I had never seen a movie from Costa Rica, and I would definitely check out the director’s other pieces in the future. Do I recommend it to others? I don’t know… It’s a matter of personal taste in movies… I would watch it a second time in the future though, and that, I believe, says a lot… 

Aurora | 2021 | Paz Fabrega (director and screenwriter) with Rebeca Woodbridge and Raquel Villalobos

Journal | When the wind blows...

We just emerged from three days of darkness. 

Photo by J. Luca from https://midnightdrivein.blogspot.com/

It started with the wind. 

On Friday, the 15th, the sky went dark with clouds that harbingered a storm. It started early in the afternoon, but later, something shifted... I first noticed it at around a quarter to four, when I looked outside my windows. The threes were out of control. 

It was the wind. We've been having strong winds for a week, but this time it was different. A proper wind storm, blowing faster and harder than ever before, pushing trees and billboards and everything else on its way. The sky turned brown with dust. We could hear the coconuts falling on the backyard and suddenly, the electricity went down. We had to close the metal shades to protect the glass on the windows, and for about thirty minutes, even the mobile internet network failed and there was no tether between us and the world. 

The wind didn't last long, though. It spiraled away shortly after arriving, and after the wind, came the rain. The lights didn't come back. Hours later, we dined by candle light, and that night, we went to bed in complete darkness. Darkness and silence. 

On Saturday, we spent the day waiting for things to go back to normal, but the damage was much more extensive than any of us thought at first. There were fallen trees all over the city. One of them on my street, just a few feet away from our front door. It was a tall tree, five or six metres tall, I suppose, hanging over the street supported by the electric cables. A block down the road there was a palm tree in similar condition, but this time, it pushed the cables all the way to the pavement. On the square nearby, one of the trees fell, blocking half the street. The main avenue was completely blocked, for the exact same reason. 

The lights didn't come back that day... Nor for most of the following day... Actually, it was only in the early evening, this Sunday that electricity came back, and with it, the internet, albeit, not in its fastest by any means. 

I suppose I am glad everything is back to normal, more or less... There were practical concerns to keep in mind. We lost all the food in the fridge instance. And with batteries in all our phones long gone, ordering take out was a hassle. There's also people in the city who were worse off, many of them without water, in addition to everything else. Not to mention the accidents that happened during the storm, with trees falling over cars and house... 

I have to say, however, I didn't miss electricity when it was gone... I don't mean I am ready to go back in time and live in a cave, I mean I didn't have the comforts provided by electricity for nearly three days, and I was fine... Brother and I got to do stuff we don't usually make time for otherwise, such as reading aloud, by candlelight, to each other, like Tolkien and the inklings did... And I got a bit of a mental break, from stressing about all the things I have to do, all of which necessitate a functioning internet connection... It was nice... Despite the circumstances. 

This tree was uprooted by the wind, and the electric cables were the only thing keeping it from falling on the pavement, obstructing the whole street

Close-up of the tree hanging on the cables. It remained like that for 48 hours

This team was fixing the internet, after another crew cut down most of the tree trunk

In the background you can see a huge tree obstructing half the street

Some trees were split in half

This one crushed a car. There were several incidents like this.

By sunday there were several crews cleaning up the mess and working to restore power, but it took them a long time...

More than 250 trees fell all over the city, it was a proper storm... And this is part of the natural life cycle of trees... They hardly ever die of old age...

Tree-hunting: the blossoming of the ipês

We don't really feel the seasons where I am from. There aren't fallen leaves in autumn or snow in wintertime. The cold comes in irregular bursts and in the summer there's lots of rain. But there is one undeniable sign of spring: the blossoming of the ipês (Tabebuia ochracea): 

These trees blossom once a year, in September, when all the leaves fall and there's nothing but flowers in the crown. It's beautiful and inspiring, and it only lasts for about a week. So this morning we went out for a ride, tree-hunting for ipês to catch one last glimpse of their yellow before the flowers are all gone. 

It was independence day today, which is why we had the morning all to ourselves...

This is actually a little square in our neighborhood, a couple of blocks from home...

And we even had an unexpected visitor while we were there, enjoying the view...

It was wonderful to be able to take my mind away from everything for a few hours... The world has been so... overwhelming. And there is no remedy like beauty.  

The flowers are already falling, which means they will soon be gone... But there's also something special about this coat of yellow on the ground...