Mother Dearly Beloved (Mater Amatísima)
About Film
Session Times
Thursday 8 April 6:30pm
REVIEWS
Exceptional.
FOTOGRAMAS
Fausto Fernández
In 1980 it caused a storm!
EL MUNDO
I.M.
After a long and complicated shooting, the result ended up satisfying the program directors of the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight. Victoria Abril devoted herself to a tough, difficult, self-sacrificing role. The film is held together by the strength of its performances, as well as by the narrative’s originality and acerbity. Its ending, uncompromising, remains etched in the viewer’s mind.
EL PAÍS
Mater amatisima is not an easy film to respond to, though one can admire the director for the rigor of his vision and the unusually tough performances he has obtained from his actors. It's like watching the grief of a stranger. One honors it and goes on about one's business, haunted by images that won't quickly vanish.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Vincent Canby
Mater amatisima shows there is a new director in Spain with enough talent to direct interesting films. Films such as that of Salgot can connect with any sensibility anywhere. It also proves that final quality is not directly tied to initial cost. Films with few resources but brilliant results. In short: an intimist and current Spanish film, with a very small budget and which has found a way to get through to a great deal of the bloodshot-eyed cinemagoers who look to Cannes.
EL PAÍS
Angel S. Harguindey
Through the creation of an obsessive even claustrophobic atmosphere, the contradictory mechanisms of the complex relationship between a young mother and her autistic son are acutely exploited. A dense and unnerving film.
FOTOGRAMAS
A very admirable first film, with interesting and ambitious subject matter. This was not a simple narrative, however, José Antonio Salgot has given it a tight, precise and unceasingly dignified resolution. A portrait of interesting characters and a setting whose components are all handled with good dramatic sense, a constant intimist tone and a cinematographic construction that reveals the potential of this New filmmaker. Mater amatisima has strength, worth, sensibility: from its most critical angles to its overtones of tenderness.
ABC
J. A. Rodero
Interesting and ambitious. Mater Amatisima’s originality takes shape in a series of impressive sequences –even if unpleasant or uncomfortable- played by an autistic child. Mater amatisima is a film that will interest cinemagoers and reveals a young director with talent. It also attests to the qualities exhibited by Victoria Abril.
ABC
Pedro Crespo
Excellent work from Victoria Abril and José Antonio Salgot who did a meticulous job, full of rigor, making the film into something as convincing as it is harsh, with moments of tension really difficult to bear.
ABC
What is most unsettling in J.A. Salgot’s film is the achievement of an authentic and closeted world, capable of appropriately upsetting the viewer. The film is resolved successfully. Directed with a steady hand.
LA VANGUARDIA
Ángeles Masó
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