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Review by Damià Virgili Huguet

 

 

The order of things is a Spanish short film written, produced and directed by the Alenda brothers; César Esteban Alenda and José Esteban Alenda and it was released in 2010. It was performed by Manuela Vellés, as Julia, Biel Durán, Javier Guitérrez, Marino Venancio as Marcos through his different ages, Junio Valverdem as Marquitos, Roger Álvarez and José Luis Torrijo as the two brothers and finally Ana Garcia and Manuela Paso as the two sisters.

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This short film describes the life of a woman called Julia who suffers gender violence from her husband, Marcos sometime after they have their only son Marquitos. Almost all the film takes place inside a bathroom with a bath in the middle, where Julia spends almost all her time in the short film; it represents her relationship with Marcos, because she can’t get out of there. In fact, all the objects and interactions that appear in the film have another meaning apart from the literal one; along the film, the same bath where Julia is in some points of the film, the level of the water increases or decreases depending of the tensions, the fear and the mental and physical violence that Marcos generates towards Julia. But mainly, the story is centred in a belt that Marcos tries to find all the time but Julia is hiding in the bath. The belt represents the traditional and male chauvinist behaviours and values which have been transferred through Marco’s ancestors, and he also wants to transfer it to their son Marquitos. But when Marquitos realises for the first time the violence that his mother is receiving from his father, he loses part of his ignorance, which is represented as the plane and ends up rejecting the belt and leaving the house. When the film goes on, Marcos tries to make Julia accept the ill-treatment that he gives her, but even when the time passes by, she still thinks that Marcos can change and abandon these disastrous values, so both Marcos and Julia wait for each other to change. Yet, they let this situation get worse and worse to the point that the bath cannot hold more tension and the water overflows, meaning the liberation from this situation, maybe due to Julia’s death or because she gets enough courage to leave Marcos and everything around him. In this moment, Julia leaves the bathroom and she is free from the circle of violence and tensions, but this final conclusion depends on what everybody sees; it isn’t a clear ending where we are told what is happening; everybody has to think about what could have happened.

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Almost all the scenes of the short have camera movement; the image isn’t fixed in one point, making the spectator dive in the instability of the situation of a relation where a marked gender violence is present. Also, the scenes have a constant tension that tells you that the situation can explode anytime, which may accomplish with one of the objectives that this short film tries to reach. It makes you empathize with Julia, so, some scenes have an important dramatism which hooks you and makes you dive into the situation. However, some of these scenes have too much dramatism, but it doesn’t make sense at all if we compare these dramatic scenes with the fact that the physical violence towards Julia is only shown by her wounds and bruises, which represent the violence clearly, but the psychological violence shown has more impact when you see the film that the physical wounds. Although, the direction of the film was really good, it makes you jump through time inside Julia’s mind. The score was produced by Sergio de la Puente, and it can only be heard in some crucial moments, like when she dives into the water or when she gets out of the bathroom.

 

From my point of view, the story, the production and the acting were crucial to represent a situation of gender violence and making you empathize with it. Even though I didn’t like any parts of it, the majority of this scenes were needed to represent the emotions, feelings and thoughts that this short film wants to represent. So, I think it made me dislike it in a similar way as I would reject a situation like this in real life. So, apart from transmitting beauty and art that all films and short films show us with the music, the editing and the movement of the scenes, it also has the objective and result to make us empathise with the situation; like the longest and dramatic ad against gender violence around the world. And, finally, I think that everybody above a certain age should see this short film, because it represents some of the most important problems in our society, such as male chauvinism and gender violence, so, I would recommend it to everybody above a certain age, not only because the unexplicit violence and tension, also because some of them wouldn’t understand the meaning of the most important symbols.