NINA
Narrative direction and screenplay by Andrea Jaurrieta. Cast includes Patricia López Arnáiz, Darío Grandinetti, Aina Picarolo, Mar Sodupe, Iñigo Aranburu, Ramón Aguirre, and Silvia de Pé.
[–>] In the end, as T. S. Eliot might suggest, the finish line can be found at the origin. Jaurrieta uses the homonymous tale by José Ramón Fernández to probe wounds that still bleed, turning the child inside the adult into a lens that exposes the raw edges of memory and desire. The film anchors its inquiry in the tension between childhood innocence and adult shame, a dynamic powerfully rendered through the narrative voice and visual framing.
[–>] [–>] The plot moves from a scene of vengeance where a single shotgun becomes the key to unlocking a deeper darkness: a past that hides its own identity. The director treats this familiar setup with a distinctive touch, drawing on classic cinema without becoming a mere homage. The script is keenly crafted, tracing the roots of pain with precision while letting the violence that shapes the present echo through every beat. It revisits the moment of discovering sexuality with a bold chromatic choice, the red of intimate garments scattered through sheets acting as a graphic symbol of exposure and loss of innocence.
[–>] The composer Zeltia Montes conjures a noir mood reminiscent of late classical scores. Her music helps reframe the action as a mystery to be revealed, giving Patricia López Arnáiz a chance to embody a modern femme fatale who steps down those stairs with a quiet, dangerous magnetism. The score, while not imitating past masters, evokes a familiar warmth that anchors the film’s emotional core and invites the audience to read the emotional stakes beneath the surface tension.
[–>]
Yet, by its close, the film asks a universal question, one that affects every thriller of the heart. The initial objective gradually shifts, yielding to new entanglements that emerge along the way. Jaurrieta masterfully extends Chekhov’s gun beyond the screen, turning the film into a wider meditation on gender violence and the persistence of abuse in both cinema and society. The storytelling becomes a vehicle to illuminate these persistent harms instead of simply narrating them.
[–>]
As with Isabel Coixet’s recent work, the film revisits rural settings to subvert idyllic memory and reveal a more uncomfortable truth. In the process of reconstructing memory, the community is shown as complicit through its inaction, transforming public spaces into quiet witnesses that minimize violence to a single glance or to hidden, narrow lanes that keep secrets. The result is a portrait of a community that suppresses truth by collective gaze, making the past feel both intimate and dangerous.
[–>]
Jaurrieta treats the flashback not as a linear chain but as a dynamic reformation of memory itself. The film alternates between adult and young versions of Nina, with the adult figure driven by desperation and the younger Nina, electrifying, guiding the emotional truth of the story. The two performances feed off each other in a seamless blend, with the cast effectively performing a quiet, implicit duet, guiding viewers through shifting perspectives. Darío Grandinetti’s presence adds a solemn, almost monstrous gravity to the role, a reminder of the strings that tie holds on the unseen corners of the psyche. The result is a visually and emotionally cohesive exploration of a traumatic past that informs the present without becoming overpowering.