THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – MUST SEE
How pretty are the young girls to whom the Spanish director Pilar Palomero is dedicating her first feature film, The ace Niñas (” girls “) ! So wise and well behaved too! Unaware of their charm and therefore touching, amiable to the point that we never tire of looking at them. We would like to see them flourish, we find them prevented, forbidden to speak, deprived of the company of the boys, all dressed in the same uniform – gray pleated skirt, white socks and shirt, navy blue waistcoat. They have no choice. In the (non-mixed) college of Zaragoza, Spain, where the girls are enrolled, the nuns make sure to maintain the traditional codes of femininity, learn to be wary of seduction and men, do not tolerate any deviation from discipline and morality.
The weight of the Church is opposed to the aspirations of a youth in search of lightness and freedom.
At home, for little Celia (Andrea Fandos), 11, austerity remains the rule, this time ordered by her mother, Adela (Natalia de Molina), uncompromising on the principles she herself received from his parents. A cleaning lady, Adela works hard to provide for their needs and above all to be able to offer her daughter studies that could give her independence and a better life than hers. This requires sacrifices to which Celia complies without complaining. Until the day she meets Brisa (Zoe Arnao) who enters college during the year.
Coming from Barcelona, from a family emancipated from religious principles and conventions, the little news opens up the field, suddenly leading Celia to wonder about the education she receives, on the secret that hangs over absence. of his father, on the taboo subjects of desire and love. Between them and, in their wake, the teenage girls who surround them, they symbolize the currents which, then, deeply divide Spain. The weight of the Church opposing the aspirations of a youth in search of lightness and freedom.
Juvenile severity
Because we are in 1992. The year of the Barcelona Olympics and the Seville Exhibition. Spain is enthusiastic, feels European, modern. A new wind is coming, the breath of which is reaching certain regions more than others. In Zaragoza, where our heroines live, the spirit of renewal has no voice. Except in the rooms of the young girls who, when they get together, have fun defying the prohibitions (putting on make-up, smoking, drinking alcohol). Then shyness gives way to curiosity and cheerfulness. Far from the adults, the girls let go, filmed by a camera placed at their height, very close to the gazes to which ours is attached. The close-up forces us to do it, which aims to place us among the girls, next to Celia, so that we do not lose any of her emotions, however tenuous they may be. On this point, we can rely on the young actress Andrea Fandos – a magnificent performer whose youthful gravity already seems to carry a whole life.
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