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Poison for the Fairies (1984) R

Two girls building their friendship on the shaky foundation of witchcraft and bullying.



Flavia is a pampered and naive girl who comes to new school mid-year. She gets acquainted with Verónica mostly by chance and initially thinks she's found a friend. Flavia doesn't know that her new pal isn't too well liked by other girls because she's a known liar and generally little mean.

After Verónica finds out that Flavia's parents are rich she becomes jealous for the other girl. Verónica doesn't seem to be poor by any means but her parents have died when she was just a little and now she lives with her grandmother and nanny so it's not only money she envies Flavia for but also love.

Verónica is deeply intrigued by the stories her nanny tells her. She's especially interested about the more macabre things like witches, ghosts and mummies. Again by chance she fools naive Flavia to believe she's an old witch. From that moment on their friendship turns more and more into selfish and calculating Verónica bullying weaker Flavia to do her bidding.



Poison for the Fairies is often labeled as horror but despite meddling with horror themes and having some tense scenes from Flavia's nightmares it's almost pure drama. It's a story of two girls and how their relationship evolves and finally leads to its not so surprising end. On surface level it's a story of envy and bullying and as such it works almost perfectly because its two leading characters are written so well.

Beneath the surface is another, more politicized, layer about class battles, religion and distribution of wealth. Like many artists in Latin America Taboada seems to be leaning left but unlike, for example, Mr. Freedom his work doesn't preach and ram its ideals down the viewers throat. He even leaves it open to interpretation which of the girls presented the common people and which the upper class (at least I can explain the end both ways). I much prefer the style where viewer is left with questions instead of trying to offer him truths from a pedestal.

Cinematography is solid but nothing too fancy. Its gimmick of never showing the adults (Flavia thinks the old woman is actually Verónica and the piano teacher is just a corpse) works pretty well and strengthens the atmosphere by focusing on the world through children's eyes. Gimmicks rarely work but this time I have no real complaints. Soundtrack works well but isn't exactly memorable. Both girls are great in their roles.

Great film that relies on solid script, capable (child) actors and intriguing character dynamics. It's been less than a year since I saw this for the first time and it's still just as good as it was then.