In the manner of a silent film, through texts and piano music, Cecilia Barriga articulates a two-sided drama between Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo by making them coincide through the appropriation of film fragments.
"Cinema, a profoundly emotional and solitary experience, the space for the representation of dreams".
Begun in 1988, it starts from the seduction that cinema has meant for the author, and especially for these two women, through the mechanisms of identification with the characters and their emotions. This experiment in deconstruction and rewriting attempts to answer the question of how emancipated women have been represented in classical cinema. A visual representation, a paradigm for all those who sought their autonomy, which Cecilia Barriga investigates through the two referential myths Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. As the chapters of this video evolve, we observe the different functions of the independent woman in classic cinema: from the lover with character, the traveller, the lady in search of her lover, the librarian, etc. These stereotypes construct the same type of woman with two heads, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. A dialogue between two divas of the star system who end up coinciding in the same shot, by means of cut-outs (their faces merge, intermingle, become intimately related) that shows an identity of attitudes and a constant tension of attractions.
A portrait robot of the independent woman through her myths and functions: self-sufficient, though a housewife (sewing, children, food... ); determined, pursuing her goals; a great conversationalist, though voiceless; their style and styling, the different hats they wear; their recognition among equals; their gestures, both dramatic and of pleasure; to arrive at the ceremony of presentation as queens, which they have played and which they are (Catherine of Russia and Christina of Sweden); and in the prelude to their relationship, they undress in parallel before the bedroom, to end up smoking, kissing and saying goodbye to their lovers.
