Spanish filmmaker Arantxa Echevarría feature directing debut Carmen and Lola was the first Spanish film selected to play in the Directors’ Fortnight of the Cannes Festival . It was a great start for this tale of forbidden teenage love which would go on to pick up several awards on the Film Festival circuit.
This is the story of two Gypsy (Romany) teenage girls who have grown up in a very traditional and ultra-conservative gypsy community in Madrid. Carmen (Rosy Rodríguez) is a 17 year old high school dropout who has a half-hearted ambition to be a hairdresser but really she is just desperate to get married. 16 year old Lola (Zaira Romero) on the other hand, a street graphic artist on the sly, wants to be a teacher and break away from the very restrictive demands of her culture. She is also a closeted lesbian.
Both girls are expected to help on their fathers’ market stalls and this is where they first meet and have an immediate attraction to each other. In this tight-knit community it seems like everyone is also somehow related to each other, and Carmen’s fiance Rafa (Juan José Jiménez) is actually Lola’s cousin and so they meet again, albeit slightly unhappily , and Carmens extravagent engagement party.
Soon the two girls are responding to their mutual attraction sneaking out to have a cigarette together and a kiss or two , and although Carmen fights her burgeoning desire, Lola has no desire to give up on her, whatever it will take to win her around.
However in this overtly macho patriarchal society their fathers’ word is law and they all demand that their daughters marry within the gypsy community whilst they are still teenagers, and they literally throw them at potential suitors. Lola’s father already gets into a violent rage every time her attending school is mentioned, so she knows that the mere idea of her sexuality becoming public could actually subject her to physical life-threatening attacks
Echevarría’s chilling insight into a culture where women are only considered as child-bearing chattels and unpaid workers in the family business is eye-opening to us who thought that was a thing of the past European countries at least. And by using a cast of mainly un-professional actors she adds such authenticity to this heartbreaking tale of such inbred and unshakeable blatant homophobia.
The fact that many of the parents are completely illiterate is still not a valid reason to force their children to supress their sexulaity especially as in reality not all of them will possess the survival extincts like Carmena and Lola did.
