Magical Girl - 2014
Directed by Carlos Vermut
Written by Carlos Vermut
Starring Luis Bermejo, Bárbara Lennie, José Sacristán
& Lucía Pollán
Well written characters appear to be driving a story all by themselves, with the influence of the writer seeming to have disappeared, and such are the characters in
Magical Girl - they're three-dimensional, and part of the reason I found the film so enjoyable to watch. Not knowing where the story was going to go is something I savored - as far too often these days I know exactly where a story is going, but the three principal figures in this do the unexpected, and do so while still in keeping with who these people are. Being introduced to them before, for the most part, their fates entangle, I initially thought this was going to be some kind of anthology much like
Magnolia - but
Magical Girl is far from that. Carlos Vermut's screenplay digs downwards, and pulls us with it once our fascination has fixated on the fate of it's life-like and very human personalities. You won't be uplifted, but you will feel like you've been told a really scintillating tale - the moral of which is don't go on to a dark path, even if your reasons are full of pure and heartfelt love. It will consume you, and destroy everything you care about. Pay heed to both your emotional and rational sides.
Luis (Luis Bermejo) is a single father, and his daughter Alicia (Lucía Pollán) is terminally ill. All of his thoughts center around making the little time she has left special, and as such he's determined to buy her a one-of-a-kind costume which belongs to her favourite character - 'Magical Girl' - from Japanese television. Unfortunately, this costume costs a fortune, and Luis is unable to borrow the money from anyone he knows or raise the funds himself. When he happens to cross paths with Bárbara (Bárbara Lennie) he thinks he's stumbled into his answer, but there will be consequences for the actions he decides to instigate, and this will involve ex-convict Damián (José Sacristán). Bárbara is a fascinating character played with a certain intensity by Lennie. She's obviously mentally unwell, and her husband strictly tries to make sure she takes medication to quell her demons - although it appears he's often unsuccessful. There is one great scene where she somewhat uncomfortably holds a friend's baby - and then confides to the mother something that, although meant in jest, is absolutely chilling. You know right off the bat that any part of the story that involves her will be subject to her unstable whims.
Luis' relationship with Alicia is also very involving and interesting. His love for his daughter is apparent, and a source of anguish knowing that she will pass away before long, but this leads to him becoming distracted and distant - his obsession with finding a means to buy her the costume she has wished for means he has less time to spend by her side during her illness, an irony that the film explores. There's no-one to really fault for this aside from a society that places too much emphasis on material goods and their value being insanely out of proportion with people's needs. In the meantime he grapples with his unusual circumstances when Alicia asks to be able to smoke a cigarette and drink alcohol despite her being a tender 12 years of age. Being in the position he is, Luis finds it impossible to refuse his daughter anything, which is really what propels the story forward and makes Luis a complicated protagonist. This didn't stop me from begging him to reconsider the path he eventually decides to take, and simply give himself up to her rather than try to pacify her with material goods.
Damián appears at first more mysterious, and it will take some time before his part to play in the story really becomes clear. For much of the film he simply exist as an older man who sits in his apartment doing a jigsaw puzzle*. Only later do we learn of his criminal past, and connection to Bárbara. José Sacristán, as Damián, is responsible for bringing the film to it's climax and the actor really delivers well - as all the actors do in this film. His delicate yet rough, experienced exterior and interior give him a relatable quality despite being involved with the criminal underworld - and he really seems to be the moral arbiter of the tale, which doesn't exactly unfold the way he expects it to. He cares for Bárbara perhaps a little too much considering how unbalanced she is, but he has a long history with her and obviously means well, having once been a teacher and guardian. His moral standing is never more questionable as when the credits start to roll however, as he certainly loses the audience completely as events spiral out of control - in the end all of our characters appear to be both victims of fate and circumstance, but also perpetrators and authors of their own destiny.
More than once, in reference to Bárbara, who is central to everything in
Magical Girl, we listen to 'La niña de fuego' (The Girl of Fire) performed by Manolo Caracol which certainly fits her, but also interesting is the inclusion of 'Song of Black Lizard' by Akihiro Miwa. The Black Lizard, which is a motif that makes it's presence felt during one of the film's most dark moments, is in relation to 1968 film
Black Lizard directed by Kinji Fukasaku, which is based on a novel by Rampo Edogawa about the underworld and was a noted inspiration for the film as was the
Magical Girl anime series in Japan which have been appearing in different forms since the 1960s. On the surface it sounds like a strange and exotic mix of influences for writer and director Carlos Vermut to be drawing from. Vermut specifically referred to
Puella Magi Madoka Magica a Magical Girl anime show from 2011 in which girls were granted wishes and magical powers, but realise that much pain and suffering are the price to pay for wielding them. This mix of influence and song transform what is very much a Spanish worldview which questions it's identity and meaning.
One of
Magical Girl's underworld figures puts this self examination thus : "It’s funny that Spain is the country where bullfighting is most popular. Do you know why Spain is in perennial clash? Because we don’t know whether we are a rational or an emotional country. The Nordic, countries for example are cerebral countries. Still, Arabs or Latinos have accepted their passionate side with no complex or guilt. They all know which side dominates. We Spaniards are in a balance hanging right in the middle. That’s the way we are, like bullfights. And what are bullfights? The depiction of struggle between instinct and technique. Between emotion and reason. We have to accept our instincts and learn to handle them like if they were a bull, so they don’t destroy us.” Luis, an unemployed teacher in the midst of selling his prized books during an economic crisis while looking after a terminally ill daughter is in the midst of this push and pull between the intellectual and emotional, as is Damián, who was also a teacher and has been tested himself by Bárbara. It's a destructive conflict that Carlos Vermut explores in a way that is viscerally thrilling and makes a memorable film.
Emotion and reason, passion and calculation. That Vermut handles the material so well, and directs his actors so expertly has me wanting to search his other films out, which are few so far as this is a filmmaker at the very starting point of his career. His debut,
Diamond Flash was released online and hasn't been seen by many, but was well regarded enough to see that he found backers for this great film and has gone on to direct
Quién te cantará (Who Will Sing to You) in 2018 and write the screenplay for
The Grandmother in 2021. He has the potential to be a great Spanish filmmaker, and I was thinking about Pedro Almodóvar while watching
Magical Girl as I thought this ranged into the quality spectrum that Almodóvar occupies. Vermut has sectioned his film into three chapters, 'World', 'Devil' and 'Flesh' which represent the three enemies of the soul in Christianity. This cinematic journey relates to more than Christians however, but all people who face the kinds of decisions which pit their emotions up against the more rational side of their mind.
Pedro Almodóvar himself has written an article praising the work of Carlos Vermut, and he no doubt enjoyed
Magical Girl a great deal himself. It's an
Alice in Wonderland-inspired trip (Alicia representing Alice and Luis representing her father - Lewis Carroll) with many clever little references inserted in many places (note the Rampo search engine Luis uses, which references Rampo Edogawa, the author of
Black Lizard.) These are the kinds of film I enjoy a great deal. It ended up winning the Silver Shell (Concha de Plata) at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and Bárbara Lennie ended up winning the Goya Award for Best Actress at the 29th Goya Awards ceremony for her superb performance as the damaged and psychologically volatile Bárbara in it - a performance which is thoroughly enjoyable to watch. It's a film full of life, the unexpected and relevant meaning to us all. I can imagine that many in the audience might recoil at it's ending, but I'm glad Vermut didn't take a backward step, and that he's not at the mercy of the Hollywood machine. This film needed to be unambiguous, and to end with such a full stop - such a descent, into such an underworld, demanded it. It nevertheless had me with a lump in my throat - Alicia dressed up and looking like Alice in Wonderland in a situation that was as real as
Alice in Wonderland is fantasy. Remember - it's just a movie. Only - it's a really
good one.
* An extraordinary coincidence. When I saw Damián doing the jigsaw puzzle I thought back to a time when I'd just moved into a new apartment myself, and a jigsaw puzzle I did in the first few days while settling in. The Ravensburger 3000-piece puzzle of the painting of a naval battle happened to be exactly the same jigsaw that Damián gets given to himself in this film.
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