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| Eliza Triana in Hilda Hidalgo's Of Love and Other Demons. |
Rabid with religion
By Miranda Inganni
Director Hilda Hidalgo’s Narrative Competition entry, based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel of the same name, is a stunningly supple fairy/morality (mortality?) tale set in colonial South America. The film stars Eliza Triana as the copper haired, young noble 13-year-old girl, Sierva Maria, whose ethereal image pops in stark contrast against the gritty backdrop.
Heavily influenced by the indigenous community around her parents’ jungle home, Sierva wishes for her own death as her beloved nanny lays dying. At market, Sierva is bitten by a rabid dog and is thought to have contracted the disease, which the Catholic Church insists is demonic possession. Because of pressure from the Church, her father (Joaquín Climent) reluctantly agrees to send her to a convent where a young handsome priest, Cayetano Delaura, (Pablo Derqui) -- with a penchant for reading subversive books -- oversees her exorcism. Subsequently, Sierva and Cayetano’s dreams seem only to reinforce their waking lives and the intense, desirous connection they have for each other.
This story of a troubled twosome is as romantic/tragic a tale of star-crossed lovers, whose lives are so different that they never would have intersected except for these particular and peculiar circumstances.
Recommended.
(Of Love and Other Demons screens June 18, 9:45 p.m., Regal Cinemas; June 20, 7:15 p.m., Regal Cinemas; June 21, 4:45 p.m., Regal Cinemas)
