EL PREMIO
Mexico, 2010, 115 minutes, Colour.
Paula Galinelli Hertzog, Sharon Herera.
Directed by Paula Markovich.
Argentinian-born Paul Markovitch, but living for years in Mexico, has written the screenplays for the internationally seen Duck Season and Lake Tahoe, dramas with interesting themes but made with minimalist style.
For her first film as director, she has gone back to her childhood in Argentina, the time of the generals, a period of repression and abuse of civil and human rights, of informants and of danger to the families of those on wanted lists. The Prize has a great deal of autobiographical detail and is filmed in the village where she lived and on the often-wild Atlantic coast.
The film last almost two hours and much of it is filmed in minimalist style, long pauses for reflection and with a look of drab, grey winter. Many audiences who sympathise with the characters may find the style too austere and trying their patience.
Filmed with widescreen lenses, the film looks large and feels atmospheric. The plot, however, is much smaller. A little girl (wonderfully and naturally acted by Paula Gallinelli Herzog), Ceci, lives with her mother in a dilapidated house on the shore. Her father is a detainee. She can’t tell the children at school.
While a lot of her time is by herself, she does make friends and they play in the dunes. In one crisis, she won’t own up that she had given the answers to a maths exam to a friend – and she is denounced . The teacher offers a rationalisation of the reporting- to save the whole class being punished - and she effects a reconciliation between the two young friends. The second crisis concerns an essay for a military propaganda competition. Ceci writes against the military to her mother’s horror... but...
A telling picture of a different time in Argentina, the film is also a portrait of a young girl, remembered by the director.
1. The director and her autobiography, the locations, the events? Her memories? The audience respecting her memories?
2. The film’s sensibility, feminine, writer-director, cast, pace, relationships, contemplative? The length of the film – plenty of time for reflection and contemplation?
3. The locations, the real locations from the director’s experience and life, the shore, the beach, the storms, the house and the poverty, the isolation, the dunes? The weather and winter? The town, school, the gathering for the prize? A sense of realism? The musical background?
4. The bleakness, the shades of grey, the waves, the floods? Grim?
5. The portrait of Ceci, the skills of the little girl actress, her age, poise, vocabulary, being alone on the beach, the dunes, her whims, relationship with her mother, self-will, the secrets of the family, her absent father, the lies for the townspeople? Her going to school? Her making friends, their playing, giggling? Acting as little girls? The boy, in the dunes, on the beach? The happiness of her life? At school, the teacher?
6. The mother, her absent husband, the period of the generals? People in fear, giving up names? Families hiding away? The mother at home, concern about her daughter, the secrecy, upset with her daughter? Going out, to school, shopping? Her work and shaping the shells?
7. The teacher, trying to keep the class under control, the girls and their giggling in class? The issue of cheating in the exam? Punishing the children, making them walk in the rain, Ceci’s friend telling on her, her admitting the truth? The reaction of the teacher, her severity, her punishment? Her later change of heart? Praising the little girl for saving the others from punishment, reconciling the two children?
8. The military man, the competition, the essay? Ceci and her writing against the military? Her mother’s concern? Going to the teacher, the teacher and her husband, their concern, the rules, letting Ceci write the essay again, her mother urging her to say the opposite?
9. Ceci winning the prize? Her wanting to go, the new dress and shoes? Her mother’s reluctance? The ceremony, the military, Ceci wanting everybody to applaud her, this coming true? Her pride and value in herself for her success?
10. The possibilities of an ordinary life – and the arrival of the father, on the beach, running to meet him?
11. The childhood of the director – and the success that she had made of her life, indicating the strengths of Ceci’s character even at a young age?
