‘La Piedad,’ A Terrifying Take On Attachment, Heads To Fantasia
variety.comHolly Jones Off the heels of a world premiere at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where he scooped the Proxima Special Jury Prize, writer-director Eduardo Casanova arrives in Montreal to screen his latest feature “La Piedad” (“La Pietà”) as part of the Queer Genre Cinema Spotlight at Fantasia.
The screening marks its North American debut.The film offers a delightfully bizarre peek into the lives of manic and obsessive Libertad (Ángela Molina), a mother with an insatiable desire to be needed, and her son, Mateo (Manel Llunell), who warily leans into her toxic trappings as the pair become increasingly entwined.A personal story unfurls in tandem with a poignant subplot that likens their familial relationship to that of a populace and its dictator, showing that those in control of a mere few can use propaganda just as readily as a sadistic leader to manipulate their wards into submission. “The syndrome I worked from was Munchausen By Proxy, where the caretaker sickens her child so that he doesn’t leave her.
In the film, this ends up turning around and creating a relationship of absolute dependency. This syndrome seems to have a lot in common with how dictators relate to and condition people.
That syndrome was the starting point, but I suppose that in the end, it transformed into something else,” Casanova told Variety.Llunell (“Malnazidos”) and Molina (“That Obscure Object Of Desire”), an Almodóvar alum, are joined by Antonio Durán (“Cocaine Coast”), Daniel Freire (“Sex And Lucía”), Macarena Gómez (“Dagon”), Alberto Jo Lee (“La Fuga”), Songa Park (“The Minestry of Time”) and Ana Polvorosa (“La Fortuna).“La Piedad” presents an unconventional dichotomy through sticky-sweet soft pink and pastel stylized sets, with a retro feel,.
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