Nathalie Álvarez Messen, director of ‘Clara Sola’: “The Virgin Mary is a macho idol”

A 40-year-old woman from deep Costa Rica, in an almost jungle landscape, is seen by her community as a “healer.” The problem is that Clara (Wendy Chinchilla Araya) enjoys an intense spirituality and a special relationship with nature but feels uncomfortable in that position. Not only because she does not perceive herself as a saint, but because, as the director tells Nathalie Alvarez Messen (Stockholm, 1988) the “norms of religion” become mechanisms of oppression of their sexuality.

Half Costa Rican and half Swedish, Álvarez Messen shows us in Clara Alone What that woman repressed by her community little by little is discovering her sexuality and imposing its true place in the world. The director says: “The women reproduce these norms because it is what they have been taught, Clara’s mother does what she can with good intentions. Religion perpetuates this patriarchal society. A big question is how we women do it when we have internalized these norms”.

In the film, we see many sequences with the elaborate Catholic rites that serve as a catharsis for this town isolated from the world. “In Costa Rica many women have said after seeing the film that “Clara we are all”. New models may emerge that overcome old idols like the Virgin Mary that impose an ideal of impossible purity. That image of “giver”, of sacrifice, of mother… Of course, the Virgin Mary is a macho myth, she creates inferiority complexes, it is not possible to have children without sex. Desiring to have a sexuality is something very human, very natural.”

a bittersweet memory

Those ritual images of great audiovisual beauty, have in the opinion of the director an ambiguity: on the one hand, the strength of the ties; on the other, how it also stands as a prison.

“It’s all fiction. The only thing that is true is a couple of prayers, but the songs, the rites… fiction based on childhood memories of mine. They are memories that I have close to my heart, prayers, smells, songs… there is a beautiful side. There is the other side, which are those oppressive norms. My family is very Catholic, not my parents but it is extensive: uncles, grandparents… There was that expectation that women have to be virgins at marriage, that they shouldn’t touch each other because that’s a thing of the devil… And growing up in puberty, when your body changes and begins to desire, It hurt me not to be able to talk about that desire. Yes, there is talk of sex at school but in a more reproductive way”, says the filmmaker.

Lonely, little expressive, somewhat shadowed by years of suffering… Clara stands out in her community as a “rare” woman and the neighbors interpret this rarity as a symbol of holiness.

Álvarez Messen says: “The fact that she is seen as a saint is not compatible with sexuality, that she has a different language and more affinity with nature is not seen as a “normal” person. She is treated as a different entity. But Clara is very stubborn and does not feel the shame that religion imposes on her body. She has to break chains with her community in order to be herself, which is the downside of this story. She is also a victim of the idea that women have to be at the “service of others. In the end, she is left alone as the title says, which is part sad and part empowering for her.”

In that figure of the saint attributed to her, we also see the way in which extreme religiosity collides with superstition. “In the end, what matters is that people feel healed,” says the director.

“For me the important thing is that she doesn’t feel comfortable in that position. Spirituality and nature open the doors to being herself while religion places limits on her. I like to compare her to the opposite of a witch. Witches were burned at the stake for knowing things and they don’t burn her but they are demanding many things from her that are not compatible, with that purity that is expected of her because she is a cross, “explains Álvarez Messen.

A cinema of the senses

In the wake of other South American filmmakers such as Lucrecia Martel or Julia Solomonoff, Álvarez Messen offers us a sensual and material film that almost seems to feel and touch. “I wanted to create a character whose senses are a little higher and who understands language and communication in a different way. She may not be as good with verbal language but she does have other senses such as touch that are highly developed. I am mime and I have a fascination with handsthey can express, touch, give pleasure… Clara feels a lot with them”, she says.

Beyond local peculiarities, Álvarez Messen believes that his story is universal. “In Costa Rica abortion is still illegal but everyone is sexist. Undoubtedly, it changes from some places to others but machismo exists everywhere. It is a Costa Rican film but there are also other influences. The art director was Chilean. And my Swedish background is also present”, she concludes.

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