11/11/2021 - In Violeta Salama’s debut film everything seems to be in line with its message; conflicts are flagged up, but they do not stretch beyond mere possibilities

Having experience of conflict is not enough to tell the story of conflict properly. A conflict needs ambiguity, complexity, nuance, doubt, moral dilemma, contradictions: that is what makes it a conflict. In fiction it is not enough to place a character from Jewish heritage (insert any other culture here) but who has issues with that heritage, to reflect the resulting conflicts, to talk about the weight of inheritance, of the meaning of identity. This is the fundamental error in Alegría [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the debut film by Violeta Salama (Granada, 1982), presented in the official out-of-contest section at the Seville European Film Festival: thinking that showing the real or fictitious existence of such conflict is all that is needed to reflect them on screen.

Inspired by her own experience (her father is a Sefardi Jew, and her mother is a Catholic) Salama’s film tells the story of Alegría (Cecilia Suárez), a woman in conflict with her Jewish roots, her past and her present. While preparing for the marriage of her niece (Laia Manzanares) to a young man from Melilla, part of the family moves to their home in her town of birth –this choice is no coincidence as the three Mediterranean cultures converge in Melilla– where she has been staying for some time. The wedding therefore acts as the pretext for bringing together the three women central to each story, each one from a different culture: Alegría’s best friend (Christian), the young women who helps her at home (Muslim) and her niece (Jewish).

Using this plot, Salama’s film attempt to be a comedy with a message of optimism about multiculturality and one’s sense of identity, about the possibility of reconciliation, cohabitation and harmony despite the differences that divide us. This seems to be the director’s goal: to reach that happy moral of the story, come what may. An attempt to build up a film (or any kind of fiction) to serve a specific message –no matter how valuable– is a poor decision from the outset. However the grave problem with this film lies in what she does, and how she does it, to reach that goal. Apart from the obvious stereotypes, the cheap laughs and how forced the elements on which the story hangs turn out to be –the main characters, each one from a different culture, the multicultural city, the Jewish wedding ceremony–, the issue is how she uses these elements and tries to portray these clashes of character.

A small argument suddenly topples the initially rock-solid principles of the Jewish cousin; the young Muslim girl feels released from her cultural ties as she suddenly falls in love with the visiting male cousin of the bride; etc. Just like that, several supposed conflicts are resolved. The problem is that all this would be fine if enough time and space were allowed for these matters to be developed as conflicts, if those doubts, contradictions and those difficult processes were also shown. However, in the film everything seems to be quite a lazy and easy calculated exercise: bring in elements x that get us faster to y. There is only one emotive scene that, thanks to the stunning scenery (and therefore the photography work of Pau Esteve Birba) and music by Javier Limón, makes almost two hours of viewing a little worth the effort.

Alegría is a Spanish production by the companies La Claqueta PC, Powehi Films, La Cruda Realidad, Alegría Película AIE and 9AM Media Lab.

(Translated from Spanish by Alexandra Stephens)