13/11/2024 - Belén Funes' film tackles the working-class immigrant experience in Catalonia through a touching mother-daughter family drama, boasting an accomplished acting duo

After debuting with her San Sebastián competition feature A Thief’s Daughter [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Belén Funes
film profile], Catalonian filmmaker Belén Funes returns for her sophomore feature again with a social drama tackling intricate familial relations and which, like her first film, has a script by herself and co-writer Marçal Cebrián. The Exiles [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which screened in Thessaloniki’s Meet the Neighbours+ International Competition after its presentation in Toronto’s Centrepiece strand as a world premiere, refers both in its English and Spanish (Los Tortuga) titles to those from countryside Spanish villages migrating into Catalonia. Its two protagonists, a close mother and daughter duo whose relationship is twisted by grief, must go through a period of familial reckoning complemented by an exile of sorts, both physically and emotionally. For these roles, the two lead actresses received the competition strand’s Best Actress and Special Mention prizes at the festival’s award ceremony this past Sunday.

Delia (frequent Pablo Larraín collaborator Antonia Zegers), a Chilean immigrant to Spain, keeps herself and her young adult daughter Ana (Elvira Lara) afloat as a nighttime cab driver in Barcelona. Shifting between words unsaid is the presence of Delia’s husband and Ana’s father, the late Julián, who hails from the Andalusian countryside and the family’s olive grove farm. Each has her own way of dealing with his death: while Ana absorbs his memory by acknowledging it, Delia rejects it altogether, acting out whenever the finality of his passing is confirmed again. Delia is cheerful with the family and excellent when playing with her young nieces Candela and Marta, but brutal friction emerges when she tries to see eye to eye with her maturing daughter.

Funes first leaves the audience to soak in and grasp the extended family dynamics – and relations between each person – embedded in the first half hour before finally revealing the title card. Especially in ensemble scenes, she emulates an observational documentary style as we witness the group harvesting olives, the teens covertly smoking weed and tense interactions between an increasingly confrontational Delia and Ana at Christmas. But soon after the duo makes the move to Barcelona in order for Ana to attend university, they receive a notice that they're to be evicted from their flat, leading Delia to break at the seams while Ana feels the weight of responsibility fall onto her. Despite this affective distance, Zegers and Lara continue to play the relationship as tied by an incredibly close bond. They stubbornly demonstrate their love for each other – Ana continues to use a makeup set that Delia purchases for her, even though the young woman dislikes makeup – while emotionally slipping past each other, silently grieving the same unprocessed loss. DoP Diego Cabezas casts a lingering shadow over the film’s visuals, as dark hair, obscure rooms and dimly lit car interiors seem to conceal more than they usually would.

The second half of the film feels less evenly paced, forcing the viewer to fill in some of the knowledge gaps. Changes seem to occur more rapidly as the pair grows more estranged, reunited every so often in a tight hug and reminding us that they need each other. But Funes never overstretches the story to unbelievable places, instead leaving us to put the pieces together. The film’s touching final scene represents a small spark of hope for the mother and daughter, showing not necessarily a slow progression toward acceptance, but an unexpected turn, like a real form of magic. Maybe there is a way out of the darkness of unimaginable grief after all.

The Exiles is a Spanish-Chilean production by Oberon Media (Spain), La Claqueta (Spain), Los Tortuga AIE (Spain) and Quijote Films (Chile). Film Factory Entertainment have been entrusted with international sales.