🅔🅝🅖 Elisa & Marcela - Isabel Coixet
septiembre 26, 2020
Some time ago a friend of mine recommended me a very interesting film so we watched it and at the end of the movie we analysed it while eating a spinach pizza.
And so, without further ado... welcome to this study a special guest: Nerea
Her contributions are in green, although there are lot of information in common.
Okay, enough cause this going to be long.
I'd like to start with the narrative structure, which is circular because the story begins and ends in the same place. The filme starts in 1925 presenting us Marcela's daughter who travelled to Buenos Aires in order to search for her mother.
And then the title turns up like it was answering the question.
Marcela's house it's a grim place and full of bad omens but a beam of light arrived to illuminate her path: Elisa
There are two types of sites that are repeated:
2. Water environments: The scenes with the presence of water like the beach or when it's raining. Conveys calm, fluency and freedom cause are moments where Elisa and Marcela feel safe and happy. For example when they're swimming in the shore, or when Marcela forgets the umbrella.
The movie was shot in black and white despite being a 2019 production, due to the context, which develops between 1898 and 1925.
Apart from the aesthetics given by the black and white set, it also highlights the importance of lighting and contrast in every scene, adding meaning and changing depending on the moment.
We can see it in Marcela's house because it represents her father as a controlling man and he only wants her daughter to be a housewife without any kind of education. Because of that, there is dim light. Enough to see the characters but dark and with low key lightning:
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| 23.28 |
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| 36.35 |
Marcela's house it's a grim place and full of bad omens but a beam of light arrived to illuminate her path: Elisa
And that's how they exemplify it through the lighting. Every time Elisa appears, a flash of light emerge too:
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| 1.09.31 |
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| 24.38 Marcela reading Elisa's book |
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| 1.45.46 |
And that's all about the lighting. Other interesting stuff we found is the landscapes. The context develops in Galicia, spanish autonomous region which has a humid climate, rains and there is fog frequently:
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| Rainfall |
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| Mist |
It appears a lot of landscape scenes which depict a bucolic location and almost unreal. Frankly the panorama it's so freaking beautiful.
1. Forest environments: It renders kind of an oppression cause bad things have happened in the scenes that have been in the woods. For example, when the villagers attacked Elisa or when the lumberjacks annoyed Marcela. In fact, those locations were surrounded by tall trees which give the feeling of angst.
2. Water environments: The scenes with the presence of water like the beach or when it's raining. Conveys calm, fluency and freedom cause are moments where Elisa and Marcela feel safe and happy. For example when they're swimming in the shore, or when Marcela forgets the umbrella.
Speaking of Galicia, another curiosity about this beautiful area it's the octopus. This marine animal is part of the culture and the galician astronomy. Also appears in other scenes, but we'll talk about that later.
Continuing with all the visual stuff we'd like to remark how well planned are the shots and how they care about the image composition:
During the movie seems to be like you're watching a continuous photography. I'd spend all day giving you examples, but there are too much so we'll lay only two or three examples. We're not an expert at photography but we know enough information to understand a bit of composition, like in this example, which fulfills the rule of thirds.
In this latter case we can see how pleasant it's, cause has a pyramidal composition and it feels balanced. Two canvas, two chandeliers, the table at the core and the mirror too.
In this shot the octopuses were placed in order to frame the image, and actually it's very aesthetic.
For us, it's obvious how the characters were positioned on purpose to seem more aesthetic. They look almost like a painting. Elisa looks like a Venus and it reminds me of the painting by Alexandre Cabanel. Actually it could be any painting about Venus cause almost in every artwork about her all along the history has the same position.
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| Cabanel, A (1863). The birth of Venus [Oil on canvas]. París, Orsay museum |
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| 52.24 |
Every detail has been carefully prepared and that even reminds me of the documentary photography of Cristina García Rodero. I don't know if this wonderful photographer is part of the photography director's influences, or my crazy brain has invented this nonexistent relation. Whatever it would be the reality, I take mine and I have arguments. The key points which determinate Cristina's project are:
1. The spanish costumbrism
2. Black and white
3. Religion
4. The struggle for freedom
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| [Photography by Cristina García Rodero] (Campillo de arenas. 1978) La tarde. Caixaforum Museum |
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| Film scene |
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| [Photography by Cristina García Rodero] (Lumbier. 1980) La trinidad. Caixaforum Museum |
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| Film scene |
By the way, let's give an applause to the photography crew and specially to the director of photography, Jennifer Cox. It's pretty awesome the work that she has done. I leave you a link to all of her artwork if you liked it and you want to see more about her:
To finish with the visual part I'd like to remark two last things:
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| Magritte, R. (1928). The lovers II [Oil on canvas]. New York City, MoMA |
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| Film Scene |
The first thing I wanna talk about it's this clear reference to the painting by Magritte. The shot appears in one of the sex scenes where they cover up with the sheet. My understanding of this frame it's the depiction of a forbidden love and that's why they hide from the society's judgement.
And the second thing I wanna talk about is the editing of Elisa and Marcela's letters. I think it's so lovely. It gives a touch of documentary and it's perfect to end the sequence with, cause it spends 3 years after the letters.
A curious thing I've read it's that the letters were wrote by the actresses in a rehearsal and the director loved it so she added it to the film.
Now let's talk about the sound of the filme
During the beginning of the film it barely sounds anything, there is almost complete silence.
The sound level raise gradually until reaches to the climax, which is the barricade in Elisa and Marcela house. Then decreases until it go back to the silence again. Almost all the movie is relaxed, actually there is barely music. Just in some moments we can listen a piano sonata and a woman singing, although the latter it's diegetic music because takes part in the narrative.
We spend our entire lives surrounded by noise, unless you live in a village in the middle of nowhere, it's difficult to find a bit of silence. The filme invites us to stop and appreciate those little details of life by the use of the sound and with extreme close ups and points of view shots.
They invite us to value that sensitivity and delicacy of the simple moments of life, like when Elisa dries Marcela's body with a towel.
And finally we finished. Now it's time to show you our favourites frames:
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| Marcela rehearses how greet Elisa, so sweet |
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| 3 hours to take out her clothes hahaha |
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| Actually the whole scene it's beautiful |
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| Bitch what the actual fuck haha It's a typical regional dress from Galicia, but the frame was all of a sudden |
Lastly our opinions:
The filme was absolutely a pleasant experience regarding to visually and the aesthetic. All the costumes and the landscapes were beautiful to watch. I loved the narration and which also is based in a true story, but the narrative it's a bit confusing sometimes.
The lesbian films most of the time has sad endings and that shouldn't be like this every time cause not all the real stories about lesbians end badly. And this movie has a happy ending , although the real story doesn't end very well. In conclusion, I totally recommend it and I would see it again.
I enjoyed it so much and I agree with Nerea about the aesthetic experience. The film has been very well worked and every detail was carefully thought.
In respect of what we didn't like, we are 100% agree of:
- Too much sex: The first sex scene was a bit long but it was beautiful. It has become clear to all of us, there is no need to put another three scenes. Much less with an octopus, bitch wtf. I've investigated and it's a reference to Hokusai's woodcut. Okay, we get it, an artistic reference, but we still thinking the same thing. Isabel, what you were thinking? One thing is this drawing and another completely different thing is to recreate it.
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| Hokusai, K. (1814). The dream of the fisherman's wife [Woodblock print on paper]. London, British museum |
- The fade to black in the circular shape: It's okay to do it one time but they used it 6 times, we've count it. It's a good resource to conclude the image and the story cause the fade out it's circular. But if you use it so many times it loses his effect.
- Exaggerated injury: After Elisa was attacked in the woof, in the next shot appears Marcela healing her wound. For us it's too much exaggerated. It looks like she was beaten, but actually they threw to her a few coconuts and she just bent down and covered up her face. It makes no sense.
- The character of the warden: We felt that he takes us out of the context cause doesn't seems coherent. What kind of warden it's so understanding and let two women to stay together in 1901, considering that homosexuality was socially and legally punished and also considered as a sin?
It couldn't be perfect, but all the things well done offsets the little details that we haven't liked it.
Remains a good movie and we recommend it 100%. So watch it, cause it's on netflix.
And at last, but not least:
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| Remember this is a teamwork😉 |
DIKRA & NEREA.
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