Seven years after the success of her debut feature, Blue My Mind [+lee también:
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entrevista: Lisa Brühlmann
entrevista: Luna Wedler
ficha de la película], Swiss writer, director and actress Lisa Brühlmann has presented as a world premiere at the Zurich Film Festival, and more recently at the Solothurn Film Festival, in the Panorama section, a new drama about adolescence. When We Were Sisters depicts, without taboos, a reconstituted family that tries with all its might to keep together the pieces of a dream that has turned into a nightmare. Whether they are teenagers or adults, the characters (and in particular the female ones) of When We Were Sisters are beautifully bruised, wounded by a life they can no longer control. Victims despite themselves of radical changes that they must consciously or unconsciously face, the protagonists of Brühlmann’s latest film fight to stay afloat.

The film is set in 1996, an era at once near and far in which mobile phones hadn’t yet colonised our daily lives. Valeska (Paula Rappaport), 15 years old, together with her mother Monica (played by the director herself), her new boyfriend Jacques (Carlos Leal, co-founder of hip hop group Sens Unik), and the latter’s daughter Lena (Malou Mösli), leaves for Crete where they are spending the summer holidays. At first, Valeska has contrasting feelings towards Lena, ranging from distrust to hatred. Their relationship evolves however in a positive way, transforming them into real sisters, accomplices and witnesses to a world of adults that is falling to pieces. The relationship between Valeska’s mother and Lena’s father indeed worsens vertiginously, highlighting each of their fragilities, the small and big quirks which from inoffensive turn into unbearable and ungraceful flaws. Thanks also to Lena, Valeska realises that, to find herself, she must emancipate herself from her mother and, at the same time, renounce her dream of finding a family stability she has never known.

The relationship between Valeska and her mother is complex, suffocating and self-destructive for both of them. Obsessed with the fact that she isn’t the perfect mother she dreams of being, Monica projects all her frustration onto her daughter, a sort of mattress on which falls heavily, as though mad, all her suffering. Convinced, perhaps, of healing her inner turmoil thanks to a new relationship lived as though it were the only exit, Monica weaves a fusional relationship with her partner from which her daughter is excluded. While the two adults seem absorbed in their nascent idyll, Valeska and Lena must get to know each other, and to write together the story of their own lives.

Despite a seemingly peaceful family picture, one notices immediately that something is boiling under the surface, a danger that from latent becomes increasingly tangible. Monica expresses from the start her fear that her daughter could destroy her love story with her new partner, as though the latter were a weight that life had put on her shoulders, perhaps to punish her. Jacques, for his part, instead looks to create a family harmony that includes everyone in a holiday routine that he nonetheless struggles to manage. Valeska suffers in silence, incapable of expressing an uneasiness that is now, sadly. a part of her. Unexpectedly, it will be the new bond of friendship and solidarity with her “sister” that will save her from an abyss that seems to want to suck her in.

Led by incredibly convincing actors and actresses, When We Were Sisters is a film about love and forgiveness, but also about accepting negative emotions that society considers forbidden. Monica in fact doesn’t manage to play the role of the “good mother”, one that would be naturally calm and peaceful, ready to sacrifice her life for her daughter. The bond she weaves with Valeska is more ambiguous and dark, the fruit of deep anxiety that she can’t (any longer) keep under control. Whether it’s motherhood or adolescence, When We Were Sisters doesn’t hide the dark side of humanity and that, in itself, is already a great achievement.

When We Were Sisters was produced by Swiss outfit Zodiac Pictures, as well as Greek company Filmiki Productions and SRF Schwaizer Radio und Fernsehen.