Starring Antonia Zegers (The Club), Spanish director Belén Funes’ emotionally intelligent second feature focuses on a mother-daughter relationship complicated by unprocessed grief and financial strife.
The second feature from Belén Funes (Thief’s Daughter) confirms the Spanish director’s remarkable gift for channeling overwhelming emotions into finely detailed narratives. Focussing on a mother-daughter relationship complicated by unprocessed grief and financial strife, Los Tortuga depicts familial love as a force in constant need of reckoning.
Delia (Antonia Zegers, Too Late to Die Young, TIFF ’18) is a Chilean who has resided for many years in Spain, where she met Julián, the love of her life, and had Anabel (Elvira Lara), her only child. Since Julián’s untimely death, Delia seems trapped in a cycle involving punishingly long hours spent driving a taxi in Barcelona, followed by the shortest possible route to oblivion. Now in university, Anabel leaves her extended family’s roadside hostel to live with Delia in the big city.
Delia tries to play the role of mother, yet in some ways Ana seems the more mature of the two, particularly when it comes to managing their precarious housing situation. Underneath the women’s urgent questions of where to live and how to earn money lies a deeper, more troubling question regarding how to accept a devastating loss and move on.
Known for her electrifying performances in The Club and No, Zegers brings a special gravitas to Delia, a formidable woman who cannot help the fact that her life is partly defined by her foreign origins. Zegers’ captivating combination of brash charisma and vulnerability is beautifully matched by young Lara, whose Anabel must summon preternatural strength and courage to forge a path into adulthood without leaving her mother behind.
DIANA CADAVID
Content advisory: mature themes
Screenings
Scotiabank 8
Scotiabank 3
Scotiabank 9
Scotiabank 5