'Matria': actress María Vázquez raises a correct social film

It's not easy to stop when everything is collapsing around you.

In this vicious circle moves the main character of

Ramona, a small and energetic woman who obstinately pursues more hours of work to be able to continue without her precarious existence completely falling apart.

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María Vázquez, star of 'Matria': "There is fear of talking about precariousness in the film industry"

Matria

is the feature film debut of Álvaro Gago, who in 2017 premiered the short film of the same name in which he explored the hard day of a worker in a Galician canning factory.

If then he did it by the hand of the woman who inspired his story, Francisca Iglesias, now the weight of the film falls on a professional actress, María Vázquez, an interpreter who manages to squeeze every last drop of a character whose frenzy hides a vital emptiness. submerged in layers of tasks, be they work, domestic or family.

Gago achieves a film of a social nature that grows when he seeks his own tone and detaches himself from formal styles as recognizable as that of the Dardenne brothers.

The logical influence of Belgian filmmakers on European social cinema of the last two decades is enormous and

draws on that great school, but Gago's film shows imbalances that end up weighing on the whole.

The biggest drag is the most important relationship of all, Ramona's with her daughter, Estrella de ella.

The latter is a central character to understand the constant folly of her mother, but her background is not well defined and that takes away from the drama, something that is evident in the last mother-daughter sequence, whose coarseness blurs the viewer. end result.

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Matria

talks about the fight for survival of an insignificant woman who stands up to life and those who exploit it, a power also represented by the character of Ramona's partner, a free-falling drunk who blows up the family home.

This character responds to that schematism of the secondary characters of

However, in her case the four strokes do work, in her daughter's a more precise drawing was required.

Despite these ups and downs, the film is sustained thanks to the nerve of María Vázquez, who, like her character, gives everything.

Her hair, her body, her sour smile and even her smoking gesture add up to her portrait of one of those tireless women who cannot stop until one day they decide to.

motherland

Address:

Alvaro Gago.

Performers:

María Vázquez, Santi Prego, Soraya Luaces, Tatán, Susana Sampedro, Francisca Iglesias Bouzón.

Genre:

drama.

Spain, 2023 

Duration:

99 minutes.

Premiere: March 24.

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