O LOBO ATRÁS DA PORTA
Jeyma Cruz Madruga from Guadalajara Talents Press 2014 review Fernando Coimbra's O LOBO ATRÁS DA PORTA
Fernando Coimbra´s O Lobo atrás da Porta
Making a film where the leitmotiv is a crime of passion, somehow leads the way towards a classic melodrama with excesses. Fernando Coimbra successfully has navigated this almost automatic relationship established between subject and treatment to deliver with UN LOBO EN LA PUERTA (A wolf behind the door 2013) an intimate and poignant drama at once. The story begins with the kidnapping of Bernard´s and Sylvia´s daughter, a marriage where apparently the passion is over. From the moment the police interrogation begins to unravel the contradictions star to show with the first appearance of a character that will be key from then on, Rosa, Bernardo's lover.
By a parallel mounting in retrospective we are going to get to know the story from two points of view, Bernardo´s and Rosa´s. The film focuses mostly on unveiling Rosa´s psychi and her relationship with Bernardo, which is slowly bringing us to the complexity of this woman who has more than an interesting edge.
The film goes throughout an intimate tone that visually translates into close-ups of the characters, mainly at the encounters between Rosa and Bernardo, occurring mostly in dark places, or ether there is always an element that interferes between them and results with the impossibility of that relationship. It begins to weave desires, passion, and lies and even though, we know that there will not be a happy solution, the outcome is always surprising. The plot development is conducted with skill until the climax. Slowly witnessing the Rosa´s death/life, how she undergoes a forced abortion, how she is coming to an end, because their relationship is hopeless and is enveloping an atmosphere of mystery that makes us reach the end without a clear understanding of her motivations but with no reason to judge her.
UN LOBO EN LA PUERTA (A wolf at the door) is a movie of characters, characters in all their complexity and contradictions. Poke there, where there lies the darkest of human beings, not to judge, but to warn us about it, the essence lies in us and no one is safe.
