THE STORY – A multi-generational family of outspoken Puerto Rican women takes center stage as they conceive and perform fantastical film vignettes as a way to navigate painful pasts.
THE CAST – Idaliz Villanueva, Désirée Rodríguez Villanueva, María Villanueva, Genesis Ramos Candelaria, Leilany Espin Rodriguez, Kyra Lunna Cruz, Ebony Starr Cruz & Gabriela Vázquez Ramos
THE TEAM – Gabriela Díaz Arp (Director/Writer), Wendy Muñiz, Tatiana Monge Herrera, Claudia Calderón & The Villanueva-Rodriguez Family (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 89 Minutes
For both an audience and a creative, art can be not only a great escape but also incredibly healing. This feels incredibly true for the subjects of the documentary “Matininó,” which follows multiple generations in the Villanueva-Rodriguez family, who tell filmmaker Gabriela Díaz Arp the stories of their own perspectives and particular traumas through a series of fantastical vignettes, taking control of their own experiences, no matter how painful. It’s rare for subjects of a documentary to be this blunt, yet somehow, despite the layers of escapism they put over their experiences, it remains a film that feels wholly truthful.
Gabriela Díaz Arp not only captures the spirits of each family member but also creates incredibly striking visuals to bring home the ideas she and her subjects hope to convey. So many documentaries fall into a trap of not being cinematic, even ones with higher concepts like this can rely too much on talking heads with dull compositions, but “Matininó” rarely falls into those traps. The emotions are mostly brought out by the fantastical scenes, which are complete artifice, but in a way that is attainably beautiful in their meaning to the core family. The cutting between the real people and these imagined scenes is almost Varda-esque, and brings a fresh quality to a medium that feels like we’ve seen taken in almost every possible direction. The colors in the scenes are so vivid and expressive, and you can feel the wounds that are looked back on being healed as these science fiction snippets progress, and this family gets to share their story. Therapeutic is too easy a word, but it’s incredibly apt, since even as an audience member, the catharsis is so palpably felt through the screen.
The film also serves as a sort of capsule and summation for modern politics and the generational conflicts that arise through each perspective. Conflict is perhaps a harsh word, but the distinct ways in which each family member speaks about both familial and global issues are incredibly fascinating to see contrasted with one another. While the film stems from the oldest member of the Villanueva family, Idaliz, and how she took her two children to escape an abusive marriage, those kids and their respective offspring all had bad experiences with men themselves, which they can now all discuss. These moments where you see all these mothers and their children break past that barrier and speak to each other as women, as human beings, are when the film’s beauty shines the brightest. Gabriela Díaz Arp knows when to cut between the two parallel realities quite well; the fantasy worlds never feel too silly, in a way that distracts from what drives them to exist. Perhaps there could’ve been a bit more flavor to some of the grounded bits, but the juxtaposition does help make the shift to the science fiction scenes more compelling.
The brevity of the film is very nice; nothing ever overstays its welcome in either depicted reality, and if the film had gone on for another ten or fifteen minutes, it would probably have felt just as well-paced. The imagination on display in the sci-fi world they are creating for themselves is frankly awe-inspiring and very moving in the childlike hope it captures. The world in which these women have the power and opportunities they wish they had is such a gift, offering these people a window into that possibility. One can only imagine what Gabriela Díaz Arp is capable of as a filmmaker with more resources, given the pathos she already shows on such a small scale.
Perhaps the limitations of the production result in some scenes falling short of their potential, and the under-90-minute runtime makes one yearn for a little more. However, the end product is incredibly charming and lovely nonetheless. There is so much history across the generations of family we follow in the film that each member could honestly have their own film, or at the very least could have gotten more individual airtime to flesh out their stories.
With this film, Gabriela Díaz Arp bursts onto the documentary filmmaking scene as one of the most exciting voices in the field. Their empathy for the subjects and the creativity in exploring them feel so fresh and singular, and the more they make, the better they will hopefully get.
