Victoria, Ana y Mamá

Carmen Sigler
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This piece comprises three stories, each of which is devoted to a different woman who reflects on her own life and shares with us an emotionally critical situation, such as the way she faces loss, loneliness or depression.

The formal treatment of the video skillfully combines its documentary character with a world of metaphoric daydreaming built out of extremely evocative images, such as that of a woman crossing the woods to get to a house in ruins, inside which she will perform the everyday action of setting the table; or the flashing images of a happy small girl symbolising the lost longing for happiness. The shots of the trees and the natural setting through which the camera slides provoke abounding sensations in the viewer, emphasizing the sensorial nature of reality. This piece casts a contemplative gaze, attentive to the texture of quotidian time and of the body.

The first story features Victoria and is focused on “affective loss” and its aftermath... on how one comes out to the light after a painful personal crisis. The narration also speaks about depression and the dark tunnel in which one finds oneself when in this mental state. In the second fragment we are introduced to Ana, a woman who feels herself to be in a state of “pause”, of waiting, unable to react, to act. She asks herself who she is and tries to remake her identity. Her interior monologue is charged with intensity. The last part of the video presents us with the figure of a mother, who tells us of all the sacrifices that she has made for decades in order to raise her daughters, after becoming a widow when very young. She also tells us of how she, now, in her old age, copes with melancholy and loneliness.

Rather than a realist treatment, Sigler favours the world of dreams, intuitions and extended memory. This is represented in various forms: projections on the wall, changes of speed, and performative actions, as in the third story, which is narrated as we watch the mother, alone, drinking a neverending glass of milk. During the action, images of old Super-8 footage is projected on the house, which is gradually being emptied in front of our eyes. It symbolises the isolation and the loneliness in which many older people end up.

Technical datasheet

  • Title: Victoria, Ana y Mamá
  • Direction: Carmen Sigler
  • Production: Transversal Producciones. 2004.
  • Duration: 00:18:57
  • Languages: Spanish
  • Original format: DV-Cam
  • Formats: Betacam Digital - DVD
  • TV systems: PAL
  • License: Copyright