Las niñas

Seriously, is this the winner of Goya 2021 for the Best Film? A story that could be told in 15 minutes extended with no interest sequences and never ending shots. I can't believe this is the best we can do in Spain.

This film isn't just another coming-of-age story: It depicts with a naturalism the major contrast of 90s Spain. This contrast was between the more relaxed morality that the media wanted to project and the conservative stance of the Cathoilic Church and rural areas. The path to adolescense is well told, with all the shananigans and truth revelations it entails. The direction is almost Bressonian in its minimalism and the music is exclusively from the era. Overall, a stellar movie.

It is very hard to find a film these days that doesn't feature a useless man, a empowered woman and a trans hero. This film shows the harsh reality that we all women live: our worst enemy is other women.

Mothers ruining the lives of their daughters because of their own ghosts, created by their mothers. This film opens our eyes and shows us where the real problem lies in women's society.

Celia, an 11-year-old girl, studies at a nuns' school in Zaragoza and lives with her mother. Brisa, a new classmate recently arrived from Barcelona, pushes her towards a new stage in her life: adolescence. On this journey, in the Spain of the Expo and the 1992 Olympics, Celia discovers that life is made up of many truths and some lies.

This film is a great depiction of the morals of Spain in the 90s. A country which, while trying to look forward, had not eliminated its very conservative institutions. Add to this the beggining of adolescense ( the presence of Brissa symbolizes that ) and the shananigans it entails and you have a good picture. ( In addition, there are the truths about her family hidden from Celia, which are revealed as part of the adolescense process. ) Add to that an almost Bressonian minimalism and the right music for the era and you have a stellar movie.

People born in 1979 or 1980 or even 1981, 1982 or 1983 in Spain lived in a country which made an effort to be seen as "modern", but it had inside a strong contrast between this modernity and the Spanish traditions of the previous decades.