‘Hummingbirds’ Review: Border-town Beasts’ Inspired Self-Portrait – Hollywood Reporter

Silvia Del Carmen Castaños and Estefanía “Beba” Contreras, directors and subjects of fun and poetry. hummingbirdsto sing and dance, take selfies and gore around. It is easy, at a quick glance, to see their evil as youthful absorption. A youthful effusion indeed, but a heavy, vibrating and compelling course through levity. Silvia and Beba are powerful authors and gifted musicians. 18 And when they were 21 they began to make a veil, and he caught them, in that singular interior, in the ends of the pubes, they are full grown. They are also intimately aware of another middle ground that does not seem to disappear: Mexican immigrants live on the de facto border in Laredo, a city on the Texas side of the Rio Grande.

Mostly shot in the summer of 2019; hummingbirdswhich won the jury at the Berlin awards and received the North American bow in True/False, it was made out of what the filmmakers call a “collaborative apprenticeship filming model”. Inspiration from such a film as a Polish documentary All these sleepless nightsThe pilots were designed by the creative prose co-directors (Jillian Schlesinger, Miguel Drake-McLaughlin, Ana Rodríguez-Falcó, Diane Ng) and the editor (Isidore Bethel, whose credits include We will leave that). From a dual self-portrait, it has the heyday of summer sports and a clear focus on creating energy for animals that are smart and terribly lovable. There are those who have had to grow up, from an early age, the songs of their families and especially the worries about immigration policies.

Beba waits for her plans and manages expectations, hoping for a resident state but not daring to dream of the state. An elemental part of her story is a memory that carries with it something that is not directly her own, but something that has been described to her: passing the fringes over her mother’s shoulders. Both Beba and Silvia remember being deported as kids, and although the full sweep of their biographies is never clearly visible, details emerge, in bits and pieces of interviews, about families along the US-Mexico border and a shortened childhood divide. must take care of younger siblings. When they sneak away with other friends into a house built in luxury, there is something sweet and serious, under the prudence, that they imagine themselves living in such a place.

It’s bold and open vulnerability in the way they experiment in their art, Silvia’s songs, Beba’s songs and her sister’s dances and also performing in the industry. On the latter front, their concerns are twofold: the callous treatment of those who immigrate to the States from their southern neighbors, and the diminishing access to safe and legal reproductive care, including abortion.

Silvia, raised on this question, proves to be an effective advocate in a formal setting. That’s a bit of a development from the sequence in the doc when earlier, Beba and their friend Jeffrey set out on a night mission to change the anti-abortion message of the sign. Dressed in vandalism for their arrival, they perform for the cameras, but they also perform something on a higher order. Their bandannas may be funny ways of masking their identities, but Beba and Silvia wear shirts that say “I had a miscarriage” (“I had an abortion”), and Jeffrey’s femme fatale outfit announces his identity without apology.

Jeffrey’s birthday celebration in the alley with Beba and Silvia is the most beautiful section of the film. These three words of warning from the parents make them laugh, full of stains, and alive with love. On the other hand, it’s the hyper-sappy behavior that Beba and Silvia get into when they accompany Beba’s mother to a bingo game that she takes very seriously.

The spark and embrace of love and acceptance is the root of the film. Nothing soft or mushy about it. The escapes of transgression, protest, food and nightlife that Silvia Del Castaños and Estefanía Contreras document are fleeting moments, still vital flows. They caught fireflies who, like Silvia’s Baby Tattoo, will stay.