Cinema represents reality by allowing us to imagine ourselves in situations that may seem far from our daily existence. In her directorial debut, Mexican director Urzula Barba Hopfner envisions the life of Corina (Naian González Norvind), an agoraphobic woman. She has an anxiety disorder that affects her when she is outside her safe space, her home in Guadalajara, Mexico. In an inventive storytelling about her past, Hopfner contextualizes the beginning of her trauma: the death of her father in a car accident. The director uses her nervousness to conceptualize the story. Corina has the geographical coordination of her blocks in the walls of her room. She precisely knows her limits as a symbol of respect for her father, who was a writer. Corina works in the newspaper; he used to work in its publishing section. As a correction assistant, she revises several pulp erotic novels, and the fictionalized world is where she explores beyond her house limits. Suddenly, during the rollout of the latest launch of Xareni Silverman’s book, her favorite author. Corina corrects the unsatisfying last draft, and that version gets to printing. She has to escape her anxiety and look for Silverman to fix her mistakes.
Throughout the colorful approach to world-building, Hopfner uses the visual format to establish her character’s mental estate. Collaborating with a nuanced performance by Norvind, Corina has a complex personality and multiple intricate traits in her life. The director establishes her through the colors in her costumes. She has a sense of routine reflected in that red skirt and yellow jacket she wears daily. Everything related to the home and the safety she feels inside has a strong authorial sense that creates the dichotomy between both worlds. The energy in the introduction helps to settle her motives and desperations; she becomes deeply attached to the comfort of protection. There is a creative choice of camera movements that paces the difference, which is the spine of the narrative. The character is fascinating because her personality directly molds her life and generates engaging reactions. The graphic sector sees her as an anomaly, someone who does not fit into their world and deserves the mocking they do. People in her life have different opinions about her, but they choose not to interfere because she does not have an impact that is convenient for them. She is a strange girl to them.
In this sense, when the film shifts to her discovery of the world, it does not work as well in the second half. Visually, it lacks the same energy to construct the compositions, and the addition of Carlos (Cristo Fernández), the co-owner of her favorite dinner, does not add much to the narrative. Even so, Corina’s journey towards her confrontation of the vision she rooted since a kid is relatable and gripping to follow. Hopfner introduces the smallish goods of life as attractive to her exploration of the world. How she admires the stars in the clear sky or her conversation with teacher Diaz (Mónica Bejarano) in the community is a compelling development of that introspective woman who fears the outside. These moments of the character understanding her truth are more intriguing than the story leaps that revolve around its central conflict. It certainly works better as a study of that woman who carries trauma and how she protects herself in an alternative reality. The director positions the camera as a proposition of Corina’s world and the unexplored. She decides not to judge her actions of lying to her mother or self-isolating, nor her mother’s protection when the father dies. Hopfner understands how the mind can trap a person after a traumatic event, even in a film reality. Her approach makes sense to the world she builds.
Positioned into the new generation of Mexican cinema, Urzula Barba Hopfner offers her input to this multipolar manner of filmmaking. She represents a dangerous Guadalajara, but not in a stereotypical manner. The imminent risk is of the car hitting, and how an unexpected accident can suddenly take your life away. The geographical limitations of Corina’s steps connect her to the city’s immensity. She is afraid of what she cannot predict, and how do we anticipate things in a metropolis like Guadalajara? Hopfner takes on the big metropolitan center and the inner side of Mexico, where her main character understands what the world can offer her. It is a delicate journey of commuting to the spheres to learn how to deal with the chaos of the city.
The road movie sub-genre is a metaphor for discovery, and Urzula Barba Hopfner gives her take on it as a form of confronting fears. Corina delivers an uneven film; half provides more fascination than the other, but it features a mature directorial debut by Hopfner and a multi-layered performance by Naian González Norvind. They collaborate to tell the story of fear and the chaos of the big cities, but the colors and jazzy sound instigate us to explore the unknown with Corina.
Corina recently premiered at SXSW.
Learn more about the film at the SXSW site for the title.
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