QUICK’ N DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Like the sound of heralding trumpets, the opening scene of Mexican director Daniel Giménez Cacho’s feature début, the psychological thriller Juana, written by Emma Bertrán, commands the attention of its audience. Cacho plays around by offering us the peaceful image of a park, filled with a tranquil soundscape, before a woman’s violent abduction shatters the peace.

From there, we descend into an unnerving hallucinatory sequence. We then emerge out of this and into the main narrative, where we meet the titular character Juana (Diane Sedano), while the stranger is left behind in her ordeal. It’s a fitting opening, given that so much of the film will live inside Juana’s traumatised mind and will be about what is unresolved. From the opening, Cacho and Bertrán create a need for resolution for their audience. It’s wonderfully playful, albeit incredibly dark.

At the heart of the story is Juana, a newspaper investigator who becomes obsessed with a series of femicide cold cases. Her relentless spirit is driven by her own personal trauma, which makes her dogged pursuit of the man she believes or knows to be responsible, the influential senator Javier Núñez (Sergio Jurado), no longer a choice but her manifest destiny. For Juana, it’s not only about finding the truth, and as she tells her editor Fausto (Francisco Denis), who worries about her wellbeing, “This is my process, my need, my story”.

Whether it will heal her trauma is doubtful. It’s more likely that she’s in search of an elusive control over her own suffering.

The success of this type of story is predicated on striking a delicate balance between existing inside the character’s mind or telling the story from their point-of-view, and laying down the beats of a procedural crime thriller. Unfortunately, Juana struggles to find this balance, which finds itself in peril late into the first act, if not later, when Nùñez becomes a serious narrative consideration. And yet, afterwards, he plays a minor, fleeting role despite the seriousness of his crimes that surely demand an equitable focus to that given to Juana.

The technical skills of crew are evident: cinematographer Lorenzo Hagerman, editor Yibran Asuad and composer Maria G C Goded. Together with Sedano’s performance, a psychological space is entered through a combination of image and sound. Cacho and his collaborators effectively mimic those seamless daydreams where we drift into our thoughts or imagination, before our attention is snapped back to reality.

The striking aesthetic and Sedano’s performance are enough to ensure we’re not tempted to abandon the film prematurely. Sedano carries the look of a woman weary with life. It shows in her face, in her eyes and in her hair. She’s the physical embodiment of a woman for who life has taken away her shine. Meanwhile, the first-time director shows an interest in exploring the cinematic form in a lively way, and it’s not beyond his capability to stun his audience into questioning what they just saw. Cacho creates a paradox where two different things happen at the same time. One might interpret that, at a certain point, the film has split into two, with an alternative reality running parallel, and unseen.

Cacho and Bertrán challenge their audience intellectually and emotionally by pitching the unexpected and by appropriating horror-esque vibes. Then, there’s the consideration that if much of the film is lived inside Juana’s mind, to what extent are we lost in a dream logic realm and the space of the unreliable memories of its narrator?

Juana boasts experimentation that tries to bridge art house with engaging mainstream storytelling. Cacho and Bertrán’s ambition is admirable, and it’s the type of film that you want to like more than you are able to. Although Cacho and Bertrán earn your respect, especially as they try to create order out of chaos – a paradoxical thing which is difficult to realise. One has to admire a first-time director for attempting it, even if it’s beyond his powers. And should he resolve his narrative struggles, given Juana’s technical and aesthetic statement, Cacho could make some noise.

This is not, however, a film without shortcomings. At times, the story is difficult to follow. Cacho and Bertrán inexplicably struggle to guide the audience through the story. Instead, they are coy or ambiguous when, if only with a well-timed piece of dialogue, they need to precisely explain, threading together characters and narrative strands. The failure to do so alienates the audience, forcing us to work harder than we should to be a part of the world building. Inexplicable is the lack of character development. The filmmakers refuse to explore her story, skimming over a detailed history. There are moments when the depiction of trauma and mental health feels clichéd and disingenuous.

Juana just premiered in the First Feature Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.