Mi hija Hildegart (1977) Poster

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7/10
The film is a thought-provoking and interesting social drama with engaging portrayals
ma-cortes19 September 2021
Based on the realist novella written by Eduardo de Guzman titled Aurora de Sangre . Regarding Hildegart who was born and raised by her mother as a model for the woman of the future. At the beginning Aurora Rodriguez (Amparo Soler Leal) goes to a police station to assume the death of her daughter Hildegart (Carmen Roldán) , that she has had schemes to convert in an intelligent philosopher , model for the feminist, but finally murder her when she plans to be married.

This is not the typical drama by that time , here there is a deep social denounce about the female repression , dominance and feminism during the Thirties and concerning the actual happenings occured during the II Spanish Republic. Dealing with a peculiar family , both mother and daughter , developing the extreme domain , ambition , rivalry , envy and egoism of their two misfit members, being paced by means of flashbacks . Highly acclaimed pic offering , though really unknown , with an atmospheric and evocative cinematography by by the notorious cameraman Cecilio Paniagua . Brooding and harrowing picture is well set in the convulsive years previously Spanish Civil War , splendidly photographed , being stunningly and mostly shot on scenaries , in Madrid . As well as an engaging and thoughtful script from prestigious writer Rafael Azcona , along with Fernando Fernan Gómez himself .

It packs and atmospheric and evocative score by the famous singer and composer Luis Eduardo Aute . The motion picture was well directed by Fernando Fernán Gómez and it failed at the Spanish boxoffice . Fernán Gómez appeared in more than 200 films , directed another 20 and wrote novels , plays and poetry . He was a member of the Spanish Royal Academy and one of the best actors of the film history . Along with Icíar Bollaín , he's the only person to have been nominated as performer (El Abuelo (1998), director (El Viaje a Ninguna Parte (1986) and writer (Lázaro De Tormes (2001) for three different movies at the Goya awards . He actually won in every category at least once . This prolific and prestigious actor also directed a few films , such as : ¨Lazaro De Tormes¨ , ¨Fuera De Juego ¨, ¨Mambrú Se Fue a La Guerra¨ , ¨5 Tenedores¨ , ¨5.000 Dias Juntos¨ , ¨Ninette¨ , ¨Venganza De Don Mendo¨ , ¨El Extraño Viaje¨ that is today deemed a real ¨Cult Movie¨ and his greatest success ¨Viaje a Ninguna Parte¨ .

Based on real deeds , these are the following ones : Hildegart Rodríguez Carballeira ( 1914-1933 in Madrid) was an activist for socialism and the sexual revolution, She spoke 6 languages at the age of eight, she finished law school as a teenager and was the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party which she abandoned in favor of extreme republicanism. When she was 18 years old and had become internationally known, her mother shot her dead. Hildegart was conceived in Ferrol by Aurora Rodríguez Carballeira and an undisclosed biological father chosen by her mother with eugenic intentions. When she was sure that she was pregnant, she moved to Madrid, where she was born Hildegart. Aurora set a clock to wake up every hour, allowing her to change her sleeping position so that blood could flow to the fetus evenly. Her birth certificate and her baptism certificate reads: Hildegart Leocadia Georgina Hermenegilda María del Pilar Rodríguez Carballeira, but she only used her first name. Despite Aurora's atheism and her opposition to her birth registration, she baptized (late) the girl on March 23 and was registered on April 29. Her mother used to explain that Hildegart meant "Garden of Wisdom" in German, but there is no basis for that, the name was an invention or alternative spelling of the Norse / German name Hildegard. According to a subsequent investigation by Rosa Cal, her father was a brilliant military chaplain, Alberto Pallás. In June 1928, at age 13 and a half, Hildegart enrolled in the Faculty of Law of the Complutense University of Madrid. She subsequently taught at her School of Philosophy during the Second Spanish Republic. Hildegart was one of the most active people in the Spanish movement for sexual reform. She was related to the European avant-garde, corresponding with Havelock Ellis, whom she translated, and Margaret Sanger. At the founding of the Spanish League for Sexual Reform, chaired by Dr. Gregorio Marañón, she was elected unopposed secretary. She corresponded with many other European personalities, accompanying Herbert George Wells on his visit to Madrid, but rejecting his offer to go to London as his secretary. This offer from Wells, who wanted it to be fully developed thanks to the influence of her mother, fostered Aurora's ideas of persecution. There were several hypotheses about the cause of the murder. Hildegart may have fallen in love. She intended to separate from her mother who, out of paranoia, threatened to commit suicide. Aurora's explanation was that "the sculptor, after discovering a minimal imperfection in her work, destroys it." He shot his daughter twice in the head and twice in the heart . Aurora herself was sentenced to 26 years, but later she was transferred to a psychiatric institution in Ciempozuelos, Madrid, where she died in 1955.
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8/10
The real story of a mother who murdered her daughter for her own sake
santiago-menchen17 August 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Sorry for my lousy English. This is a largely overlooked and underrated piece of work by late Spanish writer, director and actor Fernando Fernán-Gomez from the early years of Censorship-proof cinema brought on with Democracy in Spain, in the late seventies of twentieth century. Too bad it aired with little attention from audiences that wanted to watch "bigger-than-life" exploitation explicit material that became available by that time, better than a deep insight into the most horrendous side of human nature. Not the same.

Perhaps this is due to the bizarre nature of the events it accounts for, however a real story that shocked Spanish society during a pre-civil war period known as "Second Republic" back in 1934. Hildergart Rodriguez Carballeira, a wide-known gifted and talented girl: writer, head of the Socialist Party, able to speak six languages at six, to major in school earlier than expected, to play piano and so forth, was shot to death at seventeen by her mother Aurora at her parenting home in Madrid, who would rapidly render herself to justice, acknowledging her terrible crime.

But instead of showing any remorse, she faces both the Jury and her own attorney for several times in the film so empowered and self- reassured you believe her: It had to be done. Ice cold. The same Victor Frankenstein would have answered if ever asked why he'd kill his creature in the end. There is no story- spoiling way to explain this movie, since the main event happens at the beginning.

We will learn retrospectively how her daughter was the victim of a particularly neglecting narcissistic mother, being the latter herself brought up in a dysfunctional family as well. This woman will seek an eventual sexual partner to impregnate her with a seed for the Girl amongst the girls, a unique being conceived to defend feminism and liberal ideas and to promote Eugenesia around the world, being all those concepts on fashion at the new republican times. This child would be her animated doll, like she was promised to as a child by her own father long ago. And she will bring her up all alone. With consequences that we foresee will go wrong.

So this daughter, named Hildergart (sic) ( a made-up from German ¨Garden of Wisdom", as Aurora tells her prison in-mates while she waits for trial ) is certainly gifted and talented, but she is as well human, so becomes involved with such things as politics and love and really has a most promising world ahead her. This will prove Aurora that her piece of art is alive by itself thus provoking the narcissistic spree of getting her killed, maybe enhanced by her own daughter after a bitter discussion overnight, when she tells mummy she is leaving tomorrow. "Not much time, she says, if you're going to get your way along", watching at her mother holding a gun. That is just how pure –minded and brave Hildergart was. Her mother had just tried before, but collapsed over her sleeping daughter, invading her intimacy for the last time. But now, after a while, just before dawn, she just shot.

Wonderfully acted by Amparo Soler Leal who, as Aurora, brings upon the mystery hidden inside delirium. And not only that: she delivers a very insightful and self-aware persona that will prove both the jury in the movie and the audience one single fact: No matter how dreadful her deeds, she's clearly had her point made. She will baffle a trio of experts on paranoia at court in a funny yet revealing scene. Isabel Roldán plays Hildergart like a Spanish Ava Gardner, she is as gifted as can be, just like Hildergart, and gives her character the strength to show us what it would be like for her had not she been murdered. The director tells us this weird and tragic story in a very unassumingly neutral approach that will not ditch the most unsettling sexual implications in the traits this destructive mother applies, using a fragmented backwards story- telling technique. The use of sepia canvass flash-back scenes help the viewer figure out how dysfunctional was everything from scratch, but there is no moral analysis in it any other than beholding how the story comes about in Aurora's own speech along the trial. It is not a Court film, neither is a Murder one. Should it be deemed "Cult"?

Maybe not for everybody, but a must-see either you are interested in this striking story from the beginning of last century Deep-Spain or in a very realistic portrait of narcissistic parents neglecting taken to its last. Worth an eight.
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