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Maudie. Premiere
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Irish director Aisling Walsh has chosen to focus on the intimate life of Canadian painter Maud Lewis rather than theorizing about the style of her painting. This risky choice could have been an easy, tearful and excessive drama given the not easy life of the two protagonists. On the contrary, she offers us a tender story, a song to the desire to live and the desire for self-improvement. In each scene, the whole movie transmits the elegance in emotional containment.
Maud Lewis was born in 1903. From her adolescence, she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and was forced to leave the school where she was harassed by her classmates. When her parents died, her brother forced her to live with her aunt. They both underestimated and annulled her, and thought she was a useless one. Maud's refuge to this continual contempt and adversity was painting. Her love of art together with a tender character, a strong mind and her lack of self-pity, pushed her to find a place where she could develop as a person. So, she found a job as a maid with a grumpy authoritarian man, and she saw the opportunity to develop her hobby. Her great humanity was producing in his employer very positive changes, to the point that he was who took care of her when her illness left her almost invalid. Her colourful drawings, full of motifs sometimes rare and almost always related to nature, led her to be a pioneer in the Naive art. In spite of the great success of her paintings, she never exposed in a museum, nor knew a painter, and nor resigned from her life in a small house in the middle of nature. They were both a couple of misfits who did not seek social or family recognition.
Sally Hawkins is the actress who gives life to the character with a masterly interpretation, both physically and emotionally, and Ethan Hawke will be the ungrateful husband. Although somewhat forced, his moodiness will soften over time to finish yielded to her affection.
There is an excellent end, where we can see some real pictures of the couple in their cabin of only 30 m2
Texts: Núria Farré. facebook@cinemaperaestudiants.cat
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