Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Dolores Fonzi
Starring: Dolores Fonzi, Camila Pláate, César Troncoso, Julieta Cardinali, Luis Machín
I've been watching that Welcome to Derry thing. I doubt I'll stick with it to be honest, but for now, the most interesting aspect of the series is the representation of the town, and how the show (book, film etc) configures a municipality's quotidian malaise and anomie as a by-product of malign cosmic influence (we just had a massive voter increase for Reform in Caerphilly, so it rang a bell). In actuality, though, things are much more mundane. In real life we don't need the deadlights. We voluntarily seize upon any given opportunity to hate each other. Witness how overjoyed the racists are on Twitter when someone they see as other commits a crime; the bogus association of the Southport stabbings with Islam, the rush to align the killer of Charlie Kirk with trans ideology. The pseudo righteous pile-on, the catharsis of a target.
In the thick of the recent Caerphilly by-election, it's a notion that has been on my mind. The support for Reform mystified me. What were people voting for? "Stop the boats"? Please. Caerphilly is 98% white, man. To me, a kindly soul, I can't help but thinking that what Reform does is give unhappy and supposedly disenfranchised people designated culprits to aim their anger and hatred at. Someone to blame. It's a hypothesis which is given credence by Dolores Fonzi's Belén, a true-life drama based on a 2014 case of a young woman unjustly sentenced to prison after being accused of committing an illegal abortion, with the film heavily implying that the victim was set up as a bogeyman to galvanise support for a traditionalist regime.
In her sophomore directorial feature, Fonzi (a veteran actress, who stars here while also co-scripting with Laura Paredes, Agustina San Martín and Nicolás Britos from the non-fiction book 'Somos Belén' by Ana Correa), shoots her opening with verve: an unflinching tracking shot which follows a mid-20s woman (Julieta Cardinali) urgently admitted to A&E for abdominal pains. In one take we see her stripped, probed, asked impertinent questions about her sex life, until the actual police turn up in a troop to accost the suffering woman. They show her the contents of a cardboard box, informing her that the still foetus inside is her aborted baby. In a film of deeply frustrating developments, what initially unsettles is Belén's relatively recent mid 2010s context, and the idea that such a blatant injustice could occur within the last decade. But over the course of the film, we come to realise Belén's pertinence - viz. Trump's stance on reproductive healthcare and the ideologies of Reform advisor James Orr - and the film's cultural urgency.
It's a bravura opening and one which deftly engenders confusion. The woman denies she was suffering the aftermath of an illegal abortion, and further to this that she didn't knowingly expel the foetus (the authorities claim that the embryonic remains were found in a toilet). The case comes to the attention of Soledad Deza (God Fonzi), who takes on the case as a matter of moral priority, an imperative which is verified when, upon asking for the case notes, they don't seem available. What follows is a depiction of Soledad's righteous struggle against the conservative and deeply corrupt Tucumán authorities, which cross cuts to the years and years Belén (the pseudonym given to the accused to protect her identity) spends in prison for a crime she maintains that she did not commit.
Fittingly, Belén's mien is that of a telenovela, with its heightened emotions, moral conflicts, and domestic plot strands (the impact on Soledad's family is carefully essayed, reminding you how despot authorities work within paradigms of fear and intimidation). The look, too, is televisual, with muted colours and an emphasis on recurring interiors, a visual set which extends to its largely female cast (beautiful and vividly stylish in her court room outfits, here Fonzi is the epitome of the genre's powerful female representation), which in turns corresponds with Belén's feminist ideologies. Fonzi's narration eschews melodrama and instead precisely envisages the indefatigable spirit of her characters and the demoralising circumstances that they weather.
Furthermore, unlike the flat mise-en-scene of television dramas, and in the ambitious spirit of the opening, Fonzi's film consists of several imaginative visual flourishes. Towards the end of the film, there will be a frame where Belén looks out from a prison van at the swelling support gathered for her, and we see the crowds elegantly reflected in her eyes. Within this objectively harrowing story there are also moments of levity and humour. A funny bit is when some nause spray paints a badly drawn nob on Soledad's car, along with correspondingly obscene instructions; undeterred, the lawyer and her client still drive on to the climatic court scene. Moments like this imbue the film with humanity, and like Belén within the eventual diegesis, Fonzi rewards us with hope. After proving beyond a doubt that her client did not have an abortion (dismayingly, not because of her brilliance as a lawyer, but simply because of the arrogant incompetence of the prosecution), and that Belén has simply been scapegoated to support a corrupt and disingenuous ideology, we witness the real-life dividends of the witch-hunt: a lasting, impactful and empowering social movement.
Belén is in UK cinemas from November 7th.
