As children, there is little we perceive about the outside world that doesn’t directly impact our own inner world. Sacrifices made by parents go unnoticed. The danger we put ourselves in often doesn’t make itself clear to us until later in life. To mature is to shed these shades of self-absorption, to open our eyes and take in the harsh realities of living. Klaudia Reynicke’s film “Reinas” depicts this very process, with an approach akin to revisiting a fond memory – this time with lived experience – offering a depiction our younger selves can rarely acknowledge.
During the summer of 1992 in Lima, Peru, an economic and political crisis loom over a small family. Elena (Jimena Lindo) is the mother of two daughters, Lucia (Abril Gjurinovic) and Aurora (Luana Vega). In hopes of better opportunities, Elena has decided to move herself and her two daughters to the United States. Lucia is a carefree teenager who isn’t enthusiastic about leaving her friends and watches over her younger sister, Aurora. The final obstacle for Elena to overcome before she can move her family is to receive a signature from her children’s father, Carlos (Gonzalo Molina). Amidst the growing chaos of their country, Elena and Carlos find themselves at odds with each other, as well as their own children, as they attempt to navigate a shifting family dynamic.
The youthful summer of Lima in 1992 is coated in warm tones and beachy breezes. It is in this Lima that Elena and Aurora find themselves, oblivious to the larger situation at hand. With their move date inching closer each day, Carlos decides to spend more time with his daughters who are distant from him. His ability to embody the fun parental figure, contrasted with Elena’s protective demeanor, allows the girls to open up to his presence. They go to the beach and drive over sand dunes with their father, returning to an angered Elena after curfew. The children do not understand their mother’s anger, for their perception only reaches so far past themselves. This isolation of their own awareness is amplified by Reynicke’s intimate and free-flowing direction, bringing forth the feeling of what it once felt like to be so innocent and carefree.
To compare this to the other side of the situation, where Elena is frantically collecting all of the documents needed to start their new life, allows the audience to empathize with her struggle. Elena’s frustration with Carlos’s nonchalant attitude about the signature slowly grows over the course of the film. With this comes a permeation of the dangers that rest just outside the family’s door, a danger that remains unacknowledged by Carlos and the girls. Once these dangers become more realized to the rest of the family, Elena desperately wrestles for control, but her grip is weakened by Carlos’s easygoing attitude.
Much like the daughters’ youthful naivete, the film is at first an easygoing story of adolescence. Its brightness is soon overshadowed once the underbelly of the political climate makes itself known to the previously oblivious children. The film works brilliantly in balancing the shifting tones between a childlike summer and a looming political threat. With scenes between the family, including extended family members, “Reinas” is comforting in the togetherness crafted by its direction. However, that comfort can be quickly taken away when a reminder of the outside world breaks through. In this painful transition comes the growth that we all must endure. The realization that no, summer cannot last forever, and sometimes home must be the people, and not the place.
“Reinas” at first recalls the nostalgic feelings of our own childhood, until the real-world danger gradually permeates this family’s life. What writer and director Reynicke succeeds so well at is building out the community within the family, and the bond that exists between each member. Every character’s point of view is clearly recognized, so the complex struggle that unfolds is felt in its entirety. In this success, the film becomes a moving ode to sisterhood, familial bond, and most of all, the strength of motherhood.
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