Before Matria was a fiction feature film, it was a short documentary by the same name that followed Francisca, the woman who looked after of director Álvaro Gago’s grandfather and who also worked in a canning factory. The short film won a prize at the Sundance Festival and was nominated for a Goya Award; but its director wanted to tell the full story.
All over Spain it is said that Galicia is a matriarchy. The very idea is ridiculous if we contrast it to the story of Matria: the film’s protagonist, Ramona, has no power over her own life. In all of her relationships, whether with a partner, her daughter or her friends, the others are always at an advantage. Ramona takes care of all the housekeeping in her own home. She also has two very physically demanding jobs: doing the cleaning and looking after an elderly man, and working on a cannery (and later on a fishing boat). Who is dominating whom?
‘Matria’ is not some new feminist term; it has been used in ancient Greece, where they used to say, “Earth is the mother and matria is the emotional country.” For director Álvaro Gago, the naming of the film seems to be a criticism. The main character works very hard but has no time for feeling and expressing her emotions. There is also a political commentary in filming the story in Galician, a language banned during the Franco regime.
Matria uses a circular narrative. Telling the story this way, which mirrors everyday life, is an especially dangerous approach for a first film, because at times it becomes stagnant. Nothing is added to Ramona’s already exhausting life with each turn.
María Vázquez, playing the main character, gives herself completely to the role. Her performance as a Galician woman who seems to evade criticism with corrosive humor, but in fact just lets it build up inside her, feels very natural. It is a full-body performance, in which the physicality denotes her emotions even without the help of dialogue. She portrays Ramona as a woman with a lot of dignity, who can fight for others but not for herself.
Alvaro Gago faces the challenge of depicting a woman from a man’s viewpoint, aided by cinematographer Lucia C. Pan, who filmed the story almost like a documentary, with very dim lighting that emphasizes an ordinary look. Along with a screenplay by Gago himself, the film presents a picture that could be pitiful, but instead is moving. What is most appreciated is that there is no male savior who is aspired to, or seen as a key for change. Yet at one point a man appears as an object of desire; Maria resists him, acknowledging that her life is already too complicated. A song at the end of the film a song sums it up well: “Woman so tired of struggling /What can I tell you woman?/ When you are our land and our land is like you”.
Is there a future for Ramona? Álvaro Gago believes so, not only because she deserves it but because she has the strength to seek it. When one sees the final expression on María Vazquez’s face, the viewers can only agree there is a future for her.
Director: Alvaro Gago
Cast: María Vázquez, Santi Prego, Soraya Luaces, E.R. Cunha “Tatán”, Susana Sampedro
Producers: María Zamora, Stefan Schmitz and Mireia Graell Vivancos
Photography: Lucia Pan
Editing: Alvaro Saraiva
Production companies: Avalon, New Europe Film Sales; Ringo Media, Galician Television (TVG), RTVE
Sales: New Europe Film Sales
In Galician
Reviewed at Berlin Festival (Panorama)
102 minutes
