Las Hijas de Abril
A chilling examination of maternal instincts taken to extremes, starring Spanish actress Emma Suárez as a woman whose fierce passion and cunning seem drawn equally from Greek tragedy and film noir.
Seventeen years old and seven months pregnant, Valeria appears beatific and content, living with her sister, Clara, in a Puerto Vallarta bungalow and making plans for the future with her boyfriend. Valeria had no plans to inform her estranged mother of her pregnancy, but after a call from Clara, April swoops in to offer abundant support. April is charming, youthful, energetic, and resourceful: an ideal grandmother. Once Valeria’s child is born, however, April’s take-charge attitude assumes terrifying hues.
What might have been crudely sensationalistic in the hands of a lesser director becomes eerily resonant under Franco’s cool, unobtrusive gaze. LAS HIJAS DE ABRIL is quietly iconoclastic, making the mère fatale its protagonist while keeping Valeria, the ostensible heroine, in the background for most of the story. The result of Franco’s gambit is to keep us on edge, tantalizing us with the mystery of April’s shadowy psychology. (source: www.tiff.net)