‘La piedad’: A mother’s affection

After a first feature film that has left no one indifferent; For both good and bad, ‘Skins’ was in the conversation of movie buffs the year it was released; Eduardo Casanova shows greater cinematic maturity with his second proposal, ‘La piedad’, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2022 and presented at the Sitges Film Festival. Nominated for three Goya Awards, the actor also returns to delve into the dark side of mother-son relationships.

Unlike “Skins”, ‘La piedad’ has a much more contained tone. It is true that Casanova brings back some of that bubblegum pink that so prevailed in his previous film; but this time the director combines it with much darker colors and a more austere scenography. Mainly, Casanova creates a perverse fable about the toxic relationship and emotional dependence that exists between the mother and the young protagonist.

Casanova, who already in his previous works showed that respect for the stories about the spoiled relationship between mother and son, deepens, with a portrait that, in the fabulous, It chooses to show a humanizing look at the main mother, beautifully embodied by Ángela Molina. Far from being a bad parent, Casanova chooses to portray a woman incapable of knowing how to handle affection, something she ends up passing on to her son.

Eduardo Casanova is confirmed as one of the most revolutionary voices in Spanish cinema

But the director does not stop there alone, Casanova explores how these imperfect relationships are endangered as the son tries to emancipate himself and stop being tied to his mother, with whom he sleeps in the same bed -thus playing the director of a relationship that borders on incest-. However, far from idealizing the yearning for Freedom (a word that coincides with the baptismal name of the protagonist mother, in a clear irony of events), Casanova explains how emotionally dependent relationships lead to a long process of emancipation, as if he were a former drug addict.

Because of this, the director takes the opportunity to draw a parallel between the toxic bond between the protagonist’s mother and son with that of a North Korean political dissident, who flees the communist regime for refuge in South Korea after being forced to witness how the dictatorship killed his daughters. The film captures how such a level of dependence is generated that, while living in freedom, the dissident ends up returning to the repression and terror of his home country, unable to adapt to a reality that ends up overwhelming him.

This parallel encourages that kitschy feel and aesthetic, hallmark of Casanova, which shows growth and maturity with his second feature film. as director. ‘La piedad’ shows that, indeed, the former star of ‘Aída’ has grown up and known how to modulate her voice, offering work worthy of joy on the big screen and places her as an innovative figure who does not hesitate to modulate her style as the story itself requires.

Note: 7

The best: Ángela Molina amazes with an extreme role that seems tailor-made.

Worse: Parallels to the North Korean regime are taken with a grain of salt.