María Paz González’s first narrative feature Lina from Lima (2019) is a musical comedy about migrant life in Chile that began as a documentary project. The move from documentary to musical might seem like an unusual one, but in González’s hands the artificiality of the musical genre becomes a means of intensifying the political and personal truths uncovered in her previous work. The film follows Lina (Magaly Solier), a 35-year-old Peruvian migrant in Santiago who struggles to maintain a long distance relationship with her son Junior (James González). As her story unfolds real spaces open up, transform into fantasy, and Lina breaks into song. Bedroom closets become kaleidoscopic discotheques; swimming pools are the site of synchronised aquatic dances. This approach is refreshing: many dramas about migrant experiences are cloying in their attempt to be uplifting or relentlessly grim and violent in their treatment of migrant characters. At the core of Lina from Lima’s glitter and choreography is an urgent exploration of the experience of migrant women like Lina, one that doesn’t oversimplify their experiences by using their character as a stand in for a general set of ideas.
In one musical number Lina appears as a majestic Immaculate Heart of Mary – a dramatic symbol of maternal love – against the backdrop of a sparkling red curtain. The open heart on her white dress drips blood-coloured sequins. “I don’t want to suffer any more pain or misfortunes that make me cry,” she sings, addressing the audience directly. Musical intervals like these might be fantastical but are always grounded in Lina’s emotional reality, literalising her internal world. This world is shaped by the sacrifices that Lina has made: leaving her home in Lima has not resulted in the increased financial security and quality of life she hoped for. When Lina visits her son, it becomes clear that he resents his mother for leaving and believes her new life to be one of wealth and comfort. Although Lina’s guilt is immense, she rarely shows it. González’s abrupt cuts between Lina’s waking life – where her pain is contained – and the dreamscape of the film’s musical numbers create an acute contrast. In these fantasy sequences, Lina is effusive. Her feelings are theatricalised through spectacular costumes, flourishing dance moves, and dramatic lyrics.
As an emotional outpouring, these scenes connect the audience with Lina, but are nevertheless shot and performed in ways that also delimit over-identification with her character. When Lina sings we see her in a tight close-up and she stares back at the camera. Her dance moves are authoritative and her lyrics are direct, unobscured by simile or metaphor. These formal decisions make the politics of Lina from Lima richer and more effective because they emphasise that this is Lina’s story rather than a story about Lina. The treatment of setting similarly highlights both Lina’s marginalisation and her autonomy. In Santiago, Lina works as a nanny for a young girl named Clara whose recently divorced, rich, not-much-of-a father is renovating a massive house with an outdoor swimming pool. When Lina’s group home becomes too noisy and hot, she spends an increasing number of nights in this unoccupied house. Everything inside is new and wrapped in plastic. Lina uses the furniture but doesn’t unwrap it, and González uses the uncomfortable, sticky dynamics of this sleeping situation to stress the unequal distribution of power that characterises Lina’s working life. She resides in a space but must simultaneously remove her presence from it.
Lina from Lima’s strength lies in the ways González resists an impulse to solve or emphatically comment on the liminality of Lina’s circumstances. Instead, she complicates an easy understanding of power. While the house is emphatically not Lina’s home, she exercises a certain degree of temporary ownership over it. As Lina becomes bolder in her occupation of the house, holes begin to wear in the plastic furniture covers. She surfs Tinder and invites men over for sex. When one man tries to tear off the plastic encasing the bedroom mattress, Lina shouts at him. In another scene, Lina wears a white nurse costume and has sex with her partner against the glass doors overlooking the unfinished pool. A weaker film would create a spectacle of Lina’s employer discovering and punishing her. González doesn’t let this happen, and continually denies the film’s audience the kind of implosion that they have come to expect. The same holds true for the film’s musical elements. As much as González manipulates the musical tradition, she also works against it. Some critics have written that Lina from Lima’s musical status should have been taken farther, to incorporate more numbers. I disagree. To have added more tracks or to have ended with a spectacular final song as per genre conventions would have facilitated a form of sonic and narrative catharsis that I’m not sure we deserve. Despite its intimacy, watching Lina from Lima is ultimately a passive spectatorial experience. Musical fantasy operates as Lina’s release and escape from the banalities and harshness of everyday life. Why should González use Lina’s life to emotionally reward us? Nor does bearing witness to the part of Lina’s story represented on-screen entitle audiences to relief. Instead, González honours the political realities of Lina from Lima by refusing to tie things up neatly. The film’s extraordinary ending sees Lina riding in a vehicle to or from a new job. She crosses a parking lot and walks towards the borders of the frame. It’s a daring, silent finale that works better than any song because it grants Lina the power to exit the narrative. We are suddenly – uncomfortably – cut off, and this is the way that it should be.
Katherine Connell is a writer based in Toronto.
