At the 12th Music Film Festival, held on December 19 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, almost a thousand films were presented, of which nearly 200 were admitted. The success of this festival is remarkable. I was struck by a French short film of only 10 minutes, which manages to capture the atmosphere and sense of a very complex story by Guy de Maupassant from 1880. "The secret of the dead".
The relationship between cinema and literature is abundant, but it has always been very difficult to capture in a short film the essence or literary sense of a story. In this case what is narrated seems simple. A pious sister and her inflexible brother mourn the death of their beloved mother.
I will use to explain the strength of its content, the words of its director, David M. Night Maire.
Originally from provincial France, Guy de Maupassant was always part of my academic training; his pessimistic themes and disillusioned characters resonated with my most macabre condition. Like many of the author’s best accounts, «El secreto de una muerta» has a dark and mysterious background despite its extrinsic simplicity, as does my own work. It is a warning about moral virtue as a garrote that destroys people’s lives, that exalts how sanctimonious dogma engenders restrictive and multigenerational prejudice and intolerance.
My appreciation for the story developed while living with my grandparents during the pandemic. This experience had an incredible impact on my perception of them, as I had to accept certain harsh truths about them during my stay there. It made me realize how much our opinions of others influence biased impressions, and how any new information about a person can drastically alter our judgment about them.
This brief but significant story was very close to me. Through the cinematic medium of a short presentation, I seek to explore those facets of the human condition-if it is really possible to meet someone-while serving as memento mori to live true to oneself, especially for LGBTQ+ people, despite the fear of punishment that may protect us from living in secret.
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