Presented at the Fantasia Festival, Huesera These films reveal the dark part of parenting. Valeria (Natalia Soliant) is waiting for her first baby. She and her spouse always dreamed of it. Yet her pregnancy quickly turns into a nightmare. Anxiety slowly consumes Valeria. His body is changing, his sensitivity is changing. Haunted by macabre visions, is the young woman cursed? As his whole being changes from within, Valeria feels dispossessed of his own body. Huesera offers a psychological reading of an episode of a woman's life, a period systematically represented as a « happy event." Beyond taboos, Huesera paints a clinical portrait of pregnancy with watermarked Mexican theatre and its folklore.
Our criticism of Huesera
Last summer, we had been able to talk in Montreal with Michelle Garza Cervera about the clichés she is trying to reverse and the taboos she denounces on the screen. Maternity can also be an invisible mourning. That of a life that disappears for the benefit of another, new obligations and societal injunctions that take precedence over the freedom of the mother. An incisive psychological film that shows another side of motherhood in the traditional context of Mexican society We let you discover the written transcript of our exchange which you can also view in video.
Interview with Michelle Garza Cervera in Fantasia
K7: Why did you choose to treat pregnancy in terms of psychological evolution?
For me, it was really important to show all the inner journey that a person can live. If we didn't see that passage, maybe we'd tend to judge the character. While if one shares with her his evolution which is horrible in many aspects, one can manage to experience empathy within horror. That's how we decided to write the story with my writer.
K7: There is a sentence that comes back twice and that I really like in the film. « Something went inside ». In my opinion, it is an interesting picture of pregnancy that amounts to destroying many clichés about maternity. Did you want to reverse stereotypes?
Yes, when you see a woman alone, for example, instinctively you think you have to help her wrongly or rightly. We wanted to build an independent, sexy character. Sometimes society is driven by attitudes and automatisms that date back centuries. We wanted it buried in the heart of the characters. His family sometimes tries to assist him successfully, sometimes not.
K7: Why did you choose Mexico for your movie? Are all these beliefs and rituals things you've lived in Mexico?
I wanted to create a very personal film. We really wanted to show what it was like to belong to the middle class and how different it could be. You're not that far economically and socially speaking in a city, but it's not the same, the way you grow up. I have some family who have experienced this type of experience. Sometimes I myself was able to experience some of these situations. Not exactly like Valeria since she was pregnant and that was how the film was thought. But the idea was to find symbols that had been tested by other older or younger women. That's how it helped me build myself. In my case, it could be teachers or people I met in my trade. It is in this sense that I wanted to integrate witches who help Valeria overcome this ordeal. They know how to rebuild themselves.
K7: When you are pregnant, it is also one of the last moments before another life where everything will be dedicated to the newborn. There is precisely this scene where Valeria is decorating the room for the little one and she places old business in her closet. Was the fact that a new life erased another was one of the topics you wanted to address?
It's one of the characteristics of my character. I wanted Valeria to put aside her punk teens and all the political concerns that we live at that age. It is the age when we wonder about the world and sometimes some answers will define our personality until the end of our days. It can be the act of being punk like other personal positions that one faces throughout his life. There's this idea that all these things in a corner of his closet could help him pass this new pregnancy test. She has the support of her childhood friend who is still coming into this world and who will never judge her, or not immediately anyway.
K7: In recent years, there have been many films that have addressed frontal issues experienced by women like Mister Babadook. What works could have inspired Huesera?
I really liked Mister Bababadook (2014) in fact. It's one of my favorite movies. But there is also Rosemary's Baby (1968) who remains my film of all time, especially for the placement of the camera. Politically there is this book that tells things in completely different ways. But this narrative and realization match me perfectly. There is also Jacob ladder (1990) which I studied extensively during my studies. I love the films of the 60s that are primarily based on the placement of the camera, even more than for the frame. This is one of the aspects that we have pushed enormously to transcribe this psychological horror with Huesera.
K7: In your movie, is there also this scene where she sees spiders? Is it a metaphor of the spider web that closes on the mother with pregnancy?
I worked several points for my film: first the broken bones of the entities but also spiders, yes. One of the main inspirations comes from the French Louise Bourgeois and her sculpture « Mom ». The artist directly compared pregnancy to the spider figure. A canvas looks like a house but it's also a prison. It can catch prey and eat it. Valeria looks like these spiders in a way. It's something I wanted to insert into the film. There is also the fact that this statue is very boned. If we could imagine it moving, it would probably crack everywhere! There's a lot of details about this in the movie. At the moment, you don't necessarily notice it, but if you look at Huesera for a second time, you can find some everywhere. It's a spider web from which it must actually escape!
K7: Are you going to go further on this pregnancy theme for your next movies or are you going to move on completely?
That's a good question. Many people have asked me. I decided to make this film five years ago. It was a complete story. But now I want to move forward. That doesn't define me. Really! It's something I found important to treat, in my family as well as in my own history. My film produced the cathartic effect I was looking for for my loved ones as for me. The other night in Fantasia, there was even this spectator who spoke at Q&A about her own experience. She was so moved! For me, this means that the film has achieved its objective. Now I want to move on. I have already had proposals to work on pregnancy stories that I have refused. (laughs)
K7: Yes, his testimony was chilling after the session. She claimed to have had the feeling of « dying from inside ». I also think that your fim deals with topics that we should talk about more.
Thank you very much. Yeah, for me it should be so natural nowadays to show this empathy. But with the recent political events of the ban on abortion in some American states, more than ever we must continue to have this discussion!
K7: I have no doubt that some believers appreciate your film (laughs)...
Oh... I'm sure of it. I'm a little worried about how the film will be received in Mexico City! We'll see!
Michelle Garza Cervera, director
Born in 1987 in Mexico, Michelle Garza Cervera studied cinema at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica in Mexico City, and then joined Goldsmiths University in London where she obtained a master's degree in filmmaking. She then made several short films selected at many festivals around the world before signing Huesera is his first horrific feature film.
Exchange with Michelle Garza Cervera in Fantasia
Trailer of Huesera
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