After Lucia

In an early scene of the movie, a grieving husband suddenly bursts into tears while cooking. His 17-year-old daughter is with him in the house, but prefers to stay away. The sight of her father crying, which deeply moves her, leaves a authority void in her life that will define her behavior as things unravel at her new school. The relationship between Alejandra and her father is of deep love, but too many things are left unspoken, maybe precisely because each one thinks it is his duty to protect the other.

But at its seething heart, After Lucia is about the abject cruelty of the human being, and more specifically of teenagers. The acts portrayed soon become monstrous,and the issues raised are only too real. Unfortunately, the ensemble lacks cohesion, and leaves many questions unanswered about the characters and the plot. Moreover, the emotional frigidness of the film, desisting any sentimentalism, may be annoying to some. The camera seems to shun the characters, and consequently never gets close to them.

The film is saved by Tessa Ia Gonzalez, you embodies a scarred teenager. The scary intensity of her gaze, at once eerily serene and seething with mute terrors, will stick long in your minds.

Even if confusing, After Lucia packs a hard emotional wallop and have proved to be, alongside with American indie Compliance, one of the most disturbing sit in recent memory.

Awarded with the prize "un certain regard" at the Cannes Film Festival, Michel Franco's second film deals with a social problem largely present in cinema: school bullying in the digital age. The shooting and the framing, specially the fix off-camera shots, as well as the long silences, immerse the public into the deepness of Alejandra's emotions (superbly played by Tessa Ia). Rough, bitter and cold, the harassment scenes come one after another and we enter a kind of vicious circle in which freedom does not exist. Any type of rationality, understanding or communication are in vain in this compulsory contemplation of violence whose origin is unknown by the victim and, maybe, even by the aggressors. The lack of communication and the sobriety of the photography provide more realism to the movie. Finally, the long sequence shot at the ending enhances the beauty and coldness of the whole. With "After Lucia", Michel France offers at the same time a pessimist but realistic and universal vision of the world, in which a simple action in the social media can make a durable impact in anyone's life. Full review on our blog Los Indiscretos : https://losindiscretos.org

It's hard to watch Después de Lucía and don't get hit by a mix of feelings caused by it, like anguish, guilt, hatred and pity. And these are just a few that I felt when watching the movie. At least for me, the movie was pretty effective, mainly because I have witnessed situations just like the one shown in the movie.

The story follows the teenager Alejandra and her father Roberto moving to a new city after the death of the title character. In this new town, he starts working as a chef while Alejandra starts going to school. After something happens in a weekend party, she starts being bullied by the students.

Everything that her character goes through makes us feel really bad and powerless, seeing all that and without the capacity to help. And that's part of the superb direction of Michel Franco, which really carries the movie. Notice that almost all scenes have a static camera, and all the action perfectly fits within the frame. This gives us powerful scenes, like the one in the trip to Veracruz, where we can see students making out, others smoking marijuana, others drinking and two guys talking about something that one of them just made in the bathroom. Even with all this happening on the screen, we can't stop thinking about what happened outside of it, and it's hard to tell what just happened in that bathroom.

The camera is always far from the actors, trying to avoid us to make a connection with them. However, there is one scene with a close-up in Alejandra face, maybe to make us feel close to her. There is also only one scene (that I remember) where the camera moves, and that happens when Alejandra enters the classroom, and we see a 180 degree turn, maybe in an attempt of Franco to tell the public that the moment when the girl enters that room, her life is going to take a similar turn.

The director also made a good choice picking Tessa Ia e Hernán Mendoza for the main roles. When they're together, it's visible the indifference that reigns in their relationship. Roberto always tries to hide his suffering from Alejandra but when he is alone he cries and can't stand to drive the car in which his wife died. And even trying to show some love for Alejandra, he fails in some situations, like the one when he forgets her birthday, a fact that is not missed by her so called friends.

If it wasn't for the ending, which will irritate the politically correct, I wouldn't hesitate in show Después de Lucía to some students, trying to make them to see the dimension that bullying can reach. And let's make clear that I'm not a defender of Alejandra, mainly because the act that starts all of the bullying is caused by her recklessness. But, even knowing that she has some guilty in everything that happened, the reaction it caused was extremely unproportional.

An unrealistic approach to the issue of bullying. Too many mistakes here, after the second half the film gets boring with no dialogues and becomes a wanna be forced drama.

As a Mexican, one can accept that our cinema is not the best and is very limited, but this film, which explores a very real and sensitive topic, portrays it in a raw and heartbreaking way. It's shocking to see how a single person can ruin your adolescence with just one act or rumor, and how this can escalate to a level that becomes sickening and inhumane. This happens in the daily lives of many young people. I feel this film should be shown in high schools and universities to raise awareness about bullying. This movie not only explores these stages but also shows how, after suffering humiliating experiences, people tend to shut themselves off even more from those close to them. So give this film an opportunity and prepare yourself to see a harsh reality. Seek help-you're not alone.