matriarchal dictatorship
The cast features interpreters Ángela Molina Manel Llunell Ana Polvorosa María León Antonio Durán Macarena Gómez Daniel Freire Songa Park Alberto Jo Lee. The project emerged in 2022 and reached audiences with its premiere on January 13, 2023, earning a solid four stars. The debut film Pieles by Edward Casanova announced a filmmaker willing to push boundaries and thread a personal universe that juxtaposes grotesque with naive, fearlessly exploring sin, trouble, and experimental forms. The follow up expands the horizon, suggesting that Casanova still has much to reveal and refine within a deeply creative yet disruptive sensibility about the human psyche.
The work La piedad centers on a single, intense narrative arc focused on the relationship between a mother and her son. Its structure maintains a more fragmentary and choral feel than the filmmaker’s first feature Skins. The mother figure Libertad dominates the space, while the son Mateo endures a life altered by a stifling prison of silence, fear, illness, and creeping madness. The performance by Molina as Libertad offers a totemic, expressive presence that drives the drama through a claustrophobic atmosphere that expands into a broader examination of control and longing.
the mother as a force
Casanova questions whether maternal authority can function as a form of dictatorship. The director traces a double return that echoes the intensity found in early Julio Medem works, drawing a line between a domineering maternal figure and the pressures of a society that demands compliance. The comparison to North Korean totalitarianism becomes a provocative metaphor for the subtler forms of oppression and the suppressed emotions that lie beneath surface relations. This is not a dull study of power; it is a fearless cinema that treats liberty and constraint as two sides of the same coin, revealing how a single household can reflect colossal social forces. The film becomes a bold statement about how cinema can capture the price of autonomy when love becomes a command rather than a choice.
The new feature Mercy is a spooky yet generous meditation on fantasy and perception. It operates as a metaphorical talisman that also pays tribute to the power of plastic art. The film relies on a lush palette of images, colors, and textures crafted with an almost symphonic unity. The soundtrack and sound design bind the visuals into a cohesive experience that unsettles and captivates in equal measure. Mercy demonstrates how Casanova blends beauty and unease to create a cinematic mood that lingers long after the final frame. The approach favors direct, sensory engagement over abstract theorizing, inviting viewers into a world where form and feeling intertwine with unsettling clarity.