Rating: four stars. Room: Cinemas del Centro. Performers: Mercedes Moran, Erica Rivas, Miranda de la Serna, May Scarpolla. Genre: Drama. Director: Anahi Berneri.
The mother-daughter relationship is the first trigger seen in the DNA of Anahí Berneri’s Elena Knows. This maternal pulse, also evident in her previous award-winning film Alanis, is reinforced here by another issue of resilience. This comes from the character of Mercedes Morán, who is the Elena of the title. She is a woman who has Parkinson’s disease and is severely affected by movement problems. However, another characteristic that people with this condition often have is that they appear mentally lucid. Elena and her daughter Rita (Erica Rivas) lead an intense daily life. Mama Elena has severe difficulties moving, walking and even eating, and her daughter accompanies her in every possible way, not without logical daily quarrels, but she is the ideal person to discuss prescriptions with doctors or to convince her mother. She dyes her hair to look prettier or fills her refrigerator so she can get her daily meals without leaving home. But one day, tragedy happened. Rita was hung by a rope from the church bell tower. Suicide and surprise. There was a commotion in the school where he taught, in the neighborhood, and in Padre Juan, the priest who was loved by everyone, or almost everyone. Because Elena couldn’t believe that her daughter committed suicide. First because he can’t find a reason for his decision, and then because he insists that he couldn’t possibly do it on a rainy day because “the storm scares him,” and he starts seeing murderers everywhere, from his ex Partner Isabel (Scapola) to the same priest nearby. But the most compelling aspect of this story, adapted from Claudia Pinheiro’s novel of the same name, is the fighting spirit of the woman who walks down the street hunched over, eyes lowered by Parkinson’s disease, Watching your house getting dirtier and dirtier. It was even dirtier because his daughter’s ex-husband barely had time to take out the trash, but he didn’t give up on finding the truth. Berneri knows how to show fighting women in his films, and he brings out the best in Moran and his creation. It does this through perpetual time travel, where within a few seconds the plot travels 25 years ago and back to the present. This resource aims not only to provide data on Rita’s suicide, but also to showcase the small but great moments of happiness shared between mother and daughter, even under the difficult circumstances of terminal illness. Even though the film begins with death, it’s still a hymn to life. Yes, it’s a cliche, but that’s what defines a mother like Elena.