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Assumpta Serna stars as the brilliant and beautiful poet Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz in this magnificent portrayal of 17th Century Mexico. In order to pursue her love of writing, Juana enters the convent and gains international renown. When the Inquisition comes, the local Vicereine becomes Juana's protectress and erotic muse, and soon begins a thrilling romance of startling passion and intensity.
Always a pleasure to watch a film on someone I had no conception of before, and Bemberg's film is a tremendous introduction to a very rare bird indeed (as she was obliquely referred to in her own time), Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mexican nun and polymath who was eventually suppressed by the Catholic Church. Her poetry was rediscovered in the 50s by Octavio Paz, on whose writings the screenplay for this was based. It captures the outline of her life and her philosophies well and elaborates on suggestions of queer sexuality through an implied attraction to Dominique Sanda's elegant noblewoman, who protects Juana after she runs afoul…
A diferencia de Pizarnik, que destinaba su existir a las vicisitudes de su sexo y la poesía, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz parecía tener sólo un destino: ser, en tanto se pronunciaba allí en las letras prohibidas para una mujer. Escribir, como dice Marguerite Duras, es un espacio de soledad íntima con aquello que todavía no se posó sobre el papel, un silencio más allá del ruido ensordecedor, en este caso, de las voces masculinas que acallaban toda forma de expresión. Los sutiles juegos de luces y encuadres sobrios le dan a esta película un tono muy serio, de a ratos intenso, como las penumbras que van y vienen incesantemente a lo largo del film. Maria Luisa Bemberg fue y es grandísima. Y lo que le debemos por su cine es impagable.
I, the Worst of All is a baroque painting come to life. It's a formally-fascinating film, plunging viewers into the art movement of the period it's set in and dialoguing not only with those codes, but the codes of film as a medium too. Frames bathed in chiaroscuro, frames with rich bursts of colour, each one filled with details and glorious light. And when you add the movement inherent of film, it becomes such a sensual sensory experience—each fold of a fabric, the smoke of incense, dipping a quill in ink and blood, the act of writing, of expressing oneself, the act of undressing, of removing the costumes that imprison women. This film has such a rich visual language, and…
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