No family is perfect, for whatever reason, they all have problems. The nature of this conflict is not always clear, sometimes the years and lack of communication are enough for the members of a family to stop speaking to each other. These ruptures, over time, may seem buried and forgotten, but in reality they remain open wounds.
Los buenos modales is based on this idea, the second feature film by Ronda filmmaker Marta DÃaz, which premiered at the Malaga Festival this March. Manuela and Rosario are two sisters who don’t speak to each other because of a family secret, which means that their children don’t know each other and their grandchildren don’t know each other. This changes when their caregivers, Trini and Milagros, friends among them, take them to the park to play together without knowing that they are family. The little ones become friends and the grandmothers meet again on the birthday of one of them.
Born in Ronda (Málaga) and graduated from the Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC), DÃaz became known with My Dear Brotherhood (2018), her first film that she also presented in Malaga. In an interview with La Vanguardia, the director says that her family plays a very important role in her two feature films. In the case of Los buenos modales, she focuses on the feminine: “I was very interested in making the women who support, care for and pamper these families protagonists. There is a generation of women that is not talked about from fiction”.
With an Almodovarian style, the director and screenwriter delves into melodrama from humor and everyday life. “I always start with the stories from the most dramatic part, something that excites me. But I also like to narrate through the most everyday, and I don’t know why that leads me to humor. I think that, in addition to the problems and dramas, humor has a lot of place in everyday life”, says the filmmaker.
As a buddy film, Los buenos modales revolves around the plan of two inseparable neighbors (played by Pepa Aniorte and Carmen Flores) to reconcile these sisters. “They have their own problems, but they prefer to solve those of others. It’s a very common thing, it’s always easier to talk about others than what happens to us,” says the director. Manuela and Rosario, two women equally hurt by the past, but very different from each other, fall into the entanglement of these caregivers. Manuela is “a woman anchored in the past who leafs through photo albums daily, while Rosario doesn’t stop to think about what she hurt her in the past.”
These sisters are played by veteran actresses Elena Irueta, recently seen in the series Patria, and Gloria Muñoz, who already worked with DÃaz in My beloved brotherhood. Muñoz is not the only actress who repeats with the Ronda filmmaker, Pepa Aniorte and Carmen Flores also participated in her first film. “We’ve been working together for years and right now it’s a joy, because we’re friends. They perfectly understand my stories and my characters,” says the director. Also noteworthy are the performances of the well-known actresses Inma Cuesta and Bárbara Santa-Cruz, who complete the cast.
In the film, Manuela and Rosario represent a generation of women who have been educated to maintain and take care of the family: “They have been very entertained all their lives with their jobs and their children. Over the years they continue to focus on them, but now they already have their own families. They are two women who are very lonely, it would be a perfect time to keep each other company; however, resentment and pride does not leave them, “adds DÃaz.
The melodramatic tone of Good Manners, however, does not sink her into pessimism, but rather sends a hopeful message to leave the past and pride behind. “The film talks about second chances, about forgiving not so much for what we lost, but for what we still have to gain. It has a message for the future,” concludes DÃaz.
