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CAETANO’S “FRANCIA” A MOVING CHILDREN’S FILM WITH ADULT SENSIBILITY
11/09/2009
An established name at the world’s top festivals, Argentina’s Israel Adrian Caetano directs his daughter’s acting debut in his latest, independent feature, Francia, which made its successful world premiere in Venice Days. The title, and the eponymous poem that divides the film into chapters, is symbolic of just one of the many places that 12-year-old Mariana (Milagros Caetano) will probably never see in her life.
Her mother Cristina (Natalia Oreiro) scrapes by as a maid, her father Carlos (Lautaro Delgado) is even poorer, and moves back in with them when he loses his latest job, even though he left the family a decade ago. Mariana finds solace from their constant fights and her problems at school in her Walkman, and in the pictures she takes of the world around her with her new cell phone.
The film’s serious theme, however, is handled with a light touch, and marks a departure in the director’s filmography. In speaking to audiences after the screening, Caetano said: “I wanted to move away from the dark places in which I’d been working for a while, to make a children’s film, but that didn’t talk down to children. This is very personal film, a ‘family’ film in more ways than one, and it’s a great surprise to be here.”
He went on to explain that in Argentina, when children have Mariana’s kinds of problems, they are often sent to psychologists. But he wanted to present the film from Mariana’s point of view, to show that children are usually much more honest in dealing with family troubles than the adults around them. He says his daughter was the last actor to be cast for the film – and his choice pays off.
Milagros give a nuanced, touching performance that carries the film. It is impossible not to feel for or fall in love with her. Caetano admitted that the maturity of the character was inspired very much by his daughter’s maturity. “I analyzed about 1,000 hours of material that Milagros had shot, already at the age of eight, with a video camera I’d given her. She filmed our discussions, arguments, Christmas gatherings, etc., with a very adult sensibility. This forced me to be as objective and mature as she was. In a sense, I ‘stole’ her objectivity to make Francia.”
Oreiro was particularly pleased to work with Caetano because “I have always been a great admirer of his work. The role of Cristina was a challenge for me, for its complexity and how different it is from my regular roles. It was also my first time playing a mother.”
The young Milagros brought a further swell of applause when she said that doing the film was “a dream come true. It was like a trap, a good one, because it gave all of us a parallel life to live in, that was very different from our normal lives.”
Francia offers no easy answers, knowing there are none for the multitudes whose dreams may never come to pass, for lack of money or opportunities. Yet Caetano leaves us and his characters with the reminder that life’s best moments lie in the small victories of hope.
In the Photogallery (left), pictures from the presentation in Venice
Report by Natasha Senjanovic for
www.cineuropa.org
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