“Is there anything besides acid reflux?” Nico (Oriol Pla) asks his wife Maria (Laura Weissmahr) after coming home earlier than he had hoped to tend to their infant son Eric in “Salve Maria,” wondering whether there’s any other sign he might be unhealthy than the fact he’s spitting up as most babies would. After a proper visit to the doctor and some informal chitchat with others, no one thinks there is besides Maria, who can’t help but take it personally when it’s her breast milk that’s being rejected and her time and energy that’s completely consumed by the child who may not be ill, but clearly making her sick. Mar Coll’s delirious adaptation of Katixa Agirre’s “Mothers Don’t” joins a recent wave of postpartum horror films such as “Huesera” and “Baby Ruby” where deferred dreams and sleepless nights due to a crying infant can be nightmare fuel, but in her third feature, the director puts a novel twist on the tale in one more ways than one when Maria is an author who can’t help but process her experience through the books she’s read and what she writes.
Broken into four chapters with quotes from Simone de Beauvoir and Sylvia Plath, “Salve Maria” instantly places one in Maria’s head, but Coll effectively draws on the tension of not necessarily knowing what’s in her heart when the new mother struggles to connect with her son who has shown trouble taking to her. When Nico insists he can’t take any of his mandated paternity leave away when it would kill the momentum of the research team he’s a part of and the promise of a larger apartment than the cramped flat they currently share is constantly kicked down the road as well, a brutal sense of isolation sets in even when it seems as if nothing is amiss. Maria does have one potential confidant — though of course it’s not one that she wants — when Ana, an easily excitable fan of her writing, discovers she’s in the same mommy and me course as she is and while Maria tries to keep conversations to a minimum, she can’t help but be intrigued by the mention of the case of a French woman alleged to have been responsible for an infanticide of twins.
“Salve Maria” isn’t for the easily squeamish when Maria naturally starts to put herself in the French mother’s shoes psychologically, just as she would to develop any character for one of her stories, and the unimaginable becomes startlingly vivid, not only when Coll goes beyond hinting at the tragic things that could befall Maria’s baby and herself in lurid fantasies, but Maria clearly starts to sympathize for someone no one else does. What intrigues is how Coll is able to show how little sympathy there is out there for Maria as she yearns for some understanding from both the outside and within, and Weissmahr, with her sunken, continually sleep-deprived eyes, appears as if she’s never carrying anything less than the weight of the world on her shoulders when all she is holding is an eight-pound baby.
However, rather than being crushed under that burden, the impact it has on Maria manifests itself in curious ways and when her professional pursuits are so intimately intertwined with her personal perspective, Coll is able to toy with what’s reality and what’s being made up when Maria is so uncertain of it herself or at least the motive behind it. The film may promise danger in busting taboos around motherhood, but the real palpable edge is found where Maria wonders more generally what her identity is apart from the adult she felt she had to become. To compliment a performance in which Weissmahr continually finds grace notes to express her disillusionment, Coll appears liberated by the character’s profession to apply playful formal touches throughout, from the decisive chapter breaks to the more ambiguous flights of fancy that are inevitably a part of Maria’s creative process. In either realm, there’s a strong grasp on the truth of the matter, even as Maria struggles to get a grip on it and though it may take some time for her to gain control over her own narrative, Coll shows her command early and often in a riveting tale of self-discovery.
“Salve Maria” will screen again at the Locarno Film Festival on August 9th at L’altra Sala at 6 pm and August 10th at La Sala at 9 pm.