Cinema
Oriana
Fina Torres · 1985
Synopsis
María, who lives in France, learns that her aunt Oriana has died and left her a dilapidated, isolated hacienda by the sea in Venezuela, where she had spent the summers of her childhood. Having come to prepare it for sale, she explores the house and her aunt's papers, and memories return: Oriana, who never left the estate, Fidelia, the quarrelsome old servant, and a mysterious Sergio. Between what she saw as a child and what she imagines of her aunt's youth, a cruel father, a first love, she searches for the secret that kept Oriana within these walls.
Context
The film adapts a story by Marvel Moreno, which the director brought to the screen with Antoine Lacomblez. Co-produced by France and Venezuela, it brings together the cinematography of Jean-Claude Larrieu, the editing of Christiane Lack and the music of Eduardo Marturet. Doris Wells plays the aunt, Daniela Silverio and Maya Oloe the niece as an adult and as a teenager, Mirtha Borges the servant, Rafael Briceño the father. Presented at the Toronto festival on 14 September 1985, it was warmly received in New York, where part of the critics nonetheless found the pace slow and the construction hard to follow.
Who it is for
One hour twenty-eight minutes in Spanish; two ages of the same woman mingled by memory, and a slow rhythm that has to be accepted.
Prizes and reception
Caméra d'or at Cannes in 1985, prize for best first film, then best film at the Cartagena and Chicago festivals.
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