Puerperio
Pili Álvarez
Spain | 2022 | 43 min
World premiere
Language : Spanish
Subtitles : English, French
With great humour and acuity, Pili Álvarez explores her own puerperium—the period of adjustment after childbirth. Using the tools of cinema language and precise sound design, she transports us to this particular state overwhelmed by repetition and new routines. Personal experience contrasts with the constructed paradigm of motherhood as a state of grace.
With an original sense of humour and a great acuity in dealing with her subject, director Pilar Álvarez explores her own puerperium (the name given to the period of adjustment after childbirth). She makes use of the tools of cinema language – accompanied by precise and remarkable sound design work – to transport us to this particular state as yet unexplored by cinema, and somewhat difficult to translate. Throughout the film, this personal condition is marked by the rhythm of repetitions and new routines, in which the perception of time becomes distorted. The raps of the breast pump, walks in the park with the baby's stroller and the content of conversations constitute an account of this time and its rhythms. Indeed, a large part of this mother's life revolves – for a period – around the feeding and diapering of her daughter Julia. Here, personal experience contrasts with the constructed paradigm of motherhood as a state of grace: the social ideals of how a modern mother should act with her newborn baby are strongly called into question, with great lucidity and irony.
Violeta Bava
