“Lina de Lima”: the film in which Magaly Solier breaks her own mold | CRITICA

When we talk about migration, we rarely stop to delve into migrants. We discuss and debate them until they become the effect of crises that we feel alien and without realizing it we are taking away part of their humanity. Cinema has also sinned of pigeonholing those who leave their homes in characters destined to face heartbreaking adventures and self-doubt against those who are in a position of power. On the other hand, “Lina de Lima” struggles not to be one of those films thanks to its daring script and the risky performance of Magaly Solier.

Lina, a Peruvian immigrant based in Santiago de Chile, has two objectives during the film: to supervise the construction of a swimming pool in the new house of her bosses and to indulge the whims of her son who she will see when she returns to Peru for Christmas. While the first case has her tied to the real world, to call it in some way, the second one pushes her to dream and idealize scenarios resulting from nostalgia and the remoteness of her home. This is where the musical component, the other great protagonist of this film, comes in.

A Lima waltz, a panalivio, a cumbia and even a carol take Magaly Solier out of her comfort zone and along with choreographies, some better achieved than others, it displays Lina's desires and illusions. Only in these scenes do the shots adopt a tonality that is not replicated in those destined for the character's day-to-day life, precisely because we soon discover that it is between music and dreams that Lina finds her fullness. Sound, rhythm and movement are his only pleasant links with Peru.

Lina's idyllic side seeks to complement the one that is more realistic, but no less daring. When she finds herself immersed in the monotony of work and puzzled by her son's disinterest in her, the concepts of mother and wife begin to reconfigure for the main character. This is where Solier shows a surprising facet. With ease, the actress plays a woman who expands the boundaries of her sexuality, leaves aside her tendency to please those she considers close and makes decisions that she would not have thought of days ago.

The convincing transformation of the character lies not only in Solier's performance. The film's scriptwriter and director, María Paz Gonzalez, has given the story a structure that favors it: two parallel realities that don't quite connect, but feed back to each other. Both have risked a lot, on the one hand Gonzalez with a broader and more intimate look at a migrant and Solier by breaking the mold to which we were accustomed. If before we mentioned “The scared tit” and “Magallanes” every time we talked about the actress Huamanguina, now the same thing will happen with “Lina de Lima”.

Separate note:

There are few times that a national film attracts because of its history and the soundtrack that accompanies it. Although it is not clear why the diversity of rhythms is Lina from Huancayo, one ends up captivated by the songs produced by José Manuel Gatica and Alejandro Rivas and composed by the film's director, María Paz González, Cali Flores and Solier herself.

Given that our billboard tends to be indifferent to local and Latin American cinema, it would be a mistake for those behind the film not to take advantage of their music to attract more viewers to movie theaters.

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