"Silvia" is a crude, uncomfortable and especially brave biographical documentary. From the beginning, the director proposes a dialectical game in which the stories and images are dissonant. The memories refute the domestic records (with an excellent editing job) and the secrets of appearances, resulting in a kind of permanent oxymoron that subtly engages the viewer in the exercise of unraveling the contradictions of the story. "Silvia" is the search for the director's reconciliation with the memory of his own mother and herself, it is also a biography of a life cut short and an autobiography of a break with a past determined to repeat itself generation after generation, hence its light and emancipatory character. "Silvia" is, at the same time, a family history, a catharsis and a profound social criticism. The disembodied voices of the Esteve sisters give us the indication that they are the protagonists of a life that, in reality, can be the life of many other women. At times, the paradox and irony add tragicomic edges, perhaps to make the stifling emotional charge of events through the director's childhood/adolescent eyes barely digestible. The film addresses machismo, family violence, or class habitus in such a direct and unbiased way that it does not admit indifference (that is why it can also irritate many people). A great debut film.
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