Ma ma
Director: Julio Medem
Talent: Penelope Cruz, Luis Tosar, Asier Etxeandia, Teo Planell
Release Date: 24th June
The Dutch angle close-up is a classic weapon in the arsenal of the director of the cinema of the grotesque. From Tod Browning’s Freaks to a more lyrical, noir expression in Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai, it’s a reliable instrument with which to evoke discomfort and unease: the hobnail boot to the groin of aesthetic devices. In Ma ma, Julio Medem uses it to buckle the mimetic knees almost every minute or so, perversely in a drama about terminal breast cancer that distinguishes itself visually otherwise only by frequent recourse to a shot of the beating of a CGI heart within the chest of Magda (Cruz) in moments of particular elation. This is the melodrama of the grotesque, almost outstandingly manipulative in its narrative deployment of remission, malignancy and, then, pregnancy, before surreally culminating in handsome oncologist (Etxeandia) crooning a deafening, inspirational come-all-ye at some anonymous seaside karaoke gazebo, in the manner of something producing a catharsis. The release does not come.
Words: Oisín Murphy-Hall
