Good Herbs for the heart
Screened at the Guadalajara Film Festival, THE GOOD HERBS is the latest effort by director Maria Novaro, who takes Alzheimer's disease as a metaphor for the abandonment to which the healing power of herbs has been condemned by contemporary world.
Maria Novaro
THE GOOD HERBS (Buenas Hierbas) is a portrait of Mexico and the ancient wisdom of its inhabitants; on top of that, it is also about female sensibility, a theme that has become the trademark of Novaro's work.
The protagonist Dalia (Ursula Pruneda) assists her mother Lala (Ofelia Medina) in her daily efforts of collecting recipes to cure the ailments of the soul. When Lala's condition degenerates, Dalia is forced to take care of her full time, a situation that presents the woman with a terrible decision.
In her new film, Novaro attempts to take her audience on a journey of exploration into new narrative territories that outgrow reality. The story is told as a reflection of sensations, odours and sounds, apparently arising from the dialogue between the women and the plants. Looking at the flowers in detail causes them to contemplate us in eternity, according to the director of DANZON.
Despite being loosely conducted in terms of narrative conventions, THE GOOD HERBS is meticulous in the use of dialogues and dramatic energy. In order to shape the characters of Lala and Dalia, Maria Novaro makes good use of daily events punctuating the progress of the disease, such as Dalia's work at a local community station - a kind of description seldom found in Mexican cinema.
Each sequence opens and closes with a recipe for the heart, a new flower and sweet melodies performed by Dalia's friends, who appear intermittently, just like the spirit of the dead granddaughter of one of the characters, an element that draws the story into the realm of magic realism and provides an emotional counterpoint to Dalia's tragedy. In addition to a book of recipes to heal the sorrow and renovate the spirit, THE GOOD HERBS is also the first seed in Maria Novaro's new style of storytelling, more subtle and more intimate.
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