Zaida Carmona | La amiga de mi amiga (Girlfriends and Girlfriends) / 2022

 bed to bed

by Douglas Messerli

 

Zaida Carmona and Marc Ferrer (screenplay), Zaida Carmona (director) La amiga de mi amiga (Girlfriends and Girlfriends) / 2022

 

Somewhat like the male gay dating scene of smaller US cities of the 1970s and 80s before AIDS, Zaida Carmona’s contemporary Barcelona lesbian world consists, if this film is to be believed, of individuals who have all had mutual partners, moving from one to another with sometimes the greatest of ease but at other moments with some bitterness and even aggression.

     The actors who play these women, many using their own first names in the general film and perhaps as well in the film within the film being made by Zaida, seem at moments to be possibly presenting autobiographical renditions of themselves, while also toasting and at moments roasting the heterosexual movies about just such floating relationships by French filmmaker Eric Rohmer, whose influence is perhaps made more apparent in the script—Zaida meets several of her girlfriends coming and going from Rohmer films—than it is in the actual cinematic work; thankfully, since I am not a big Rohmer fan. But there is the same light, sun-washed Rohmerish tone to this work as the director tours us through the Catalan lesbian and art landscape.

      The director also lingers a bit too long on her almost incidental plot, the events being retold again late in the film as Zaida explains her unhappiness to the returning couple for whom we see at the beginning of this film she has agreed to housesit as they rush off for a holiday with their children. They are perhaps the healthiest and sanest duo in the film.

       Zaida, as the film begins, has returned to Barcelona after having broken up with her ex-girlfriend Gabriella and, having been also ghosted, is quite ready to disparage her former lover to anyone who may want to hear the details. But she soon meets up with her old friend, Rocío (Rocío Saiz), who has since established what looks to be a stable relationship with Lara (Alba Cros). Lara, a fellow, a more successful filmmaker than Zaida, who seems quite willing and ready to read Zaida’s script to help to pass it along to friends is a woman who has long attracted Zaida, and the two keep crossing paths at a local revival theater who is featuring all of Rohmer’s movies. You, get the picture, almost immediately, there will certainly be some crisscrossing in the affairs of the heart in this film, as Rocío and Lara try to set up Zaida with the local musician Aroa (Aroa Elvira), who has just broken up with Julia (Thaïs Cuadreny), who herself seems ready to bed-down with nearly anyone she meets.

       As Leslie Felperin, writing in The Guardian, summarizes it:

 

“Before long, Rocío is having an affair with Julia, Zaida is making out with Lara and Aroa, and everyone is very excited – meaning the torrent of dialogue goes by so fast the subtitles can barely keep up.”

 

      Zaida performs a musical duo with Aroa and quickly moves from bed to bed before the end of the film, falling in love all over again with Rocío and realizing by film’s end that she has once more ended up with nothing but a series of nice bedroom, barroom, and theater-going memories. The viewer realizes, moreover, that, although pleasuring the eyes, he or she is still quite hungry for something more profound and emotionally expressive..

     Although obviously loving this movie for more than I did, Canadian reviewer Pat Muller in Point of View Magazine aptly praises Carmona for “lending” her “drolly incestuous town to her hybrid sex comedy. Everyone is in on the joke and playing some variation on themselves as part of Carmona’s self-reflexive exercise. The European flavour and liberal attitude to love and sexuality, moreover, accentuate the youthful atmosphere fuelled by a euphoric electro-pop soundtrack.”

 

Los Angeles, August 29, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2024).