Yesterday I finally watched La virgen roja ("the red virgin"), a Spanish film based on the story of Aurora and Hildegart Rodríguez Carballeira, a mother-daughter duo who lived in the early 20th century, specifically set during the time of the Second Republic.
I have mixed feelings about this film. On the one hand, I think it is a good film. Stunning visuals, compelling acting, and a good soundtrack that all together immerse you in its period, which is what I ask of historical fiction. But as historical fiction, its adherence to facts is something that merits its own scrutiny, separatedly, or maybe in addition, its artistic value (something I do not dispute).
It focuses on a harrowing and rarely discussed event; despite generally being interested in this period and it hitting, frankly, an eerily accurate interesction of my interests, I only found out about it on January of last year. The film reignited my interest, and I'm sure it's awakened many others', which is a huge point in its favour. But it's also made me think about how women's narratives are told, the shape they form, and why that is; something I think about a lot, regardless, but of which this particular film has become a good case of study.
To be as brief as possible: Aurora raised Hildegart on her own, conceiving her with eugenist goals in mind, desiring to shape "the first free woman" who would ~change the world and liberate us. She raised her by strict rules, and the result was a prodigy. Hildegart had a law degree at 17, when she started another few (philology and languages, medicine). She published sixteen monographs and over 150 articles on politics, sexology, and other matters. She participated in politics, joining leftist parties and advocating for women's liberation. She spoke multiple languages and wrote and established professional relationships with famous authors of the time, such as H.G. Wells or Havelock Ellis.
On June 9th, 1933, at the age of 18, Hildegart was murdered by her mother while she slept.
The facts as we know it paint a picture of a rapidly deteriorating relationship. Aurora was extremely controlling, and as she grew into adulthood, Hildegart chaffed more and more against it. Things came to a head when H.G. Wells invited Hildegart to come with him to England, and not Aurora, something that would let her step free from her mother's shadow in a definite way, and that increased Aurora's rapidly growing paranoia about people wanting to steal her daughter. As well as, possibly, her disappointed in Hildegart herself: she apparently described her as a "failed project" and, as an sculpture who sees an "imperfection" in their work, tore it down.
The movie, rather than in Hildegart's professional ambitions, or in an intrinsic desire for freedom after a lifetime of such strict control, put much more focus on a romance.
The real facts on this seem dubious at best. There has never been a definite confirmation of its status. Aurora seemingly denied it on the trial and refused to discuss it further; the man himself, a lawyer and leftist politician called Abel Velilla, denied it on an article shortly after Hildegart's death. Given Aurora's... everything, and that Velilla was 13 years older than Hildegart, I don't consider those denials the most trustworthy. And as a narrative, it makes sense. It makes sense that someone like Aurora would consider this one more failure and betrayal on Hildegart's part. It makes sense that Hildegart, 18yo, saw in this man another avenue for freedom.
When I say "it makes sense", I mean that it's a familiar story. A story we've all been familiarised with, have expectations about, and thus, that it makes sense to pull on this thread for a film, a structured, fictionalised story.
But I find it a good example of how restricted women's narratives often are. How creatives turn to the familiar, the romance, man and woman, to tell their story. How it romanticises this dynamic (painting them more like peers than a teenager and the 30yo man they were in reality) to portray a classic tale of young love versus jealous and controlling mother. How it blurrs the line of Hildegart's possible infatuation with Abel being a manifestation of her desires to escape her home or the cause of that desire existing at all.
How a story about a woman that removed, or even minimised, the romantical aspect, or treated it more cynically, might have struggled more to find its audience, or even to built up its own narrative, by rebuffing more familiar structures.
Another nitpick I have, less important to me than the above, but plenty relevant in terms of historical fiction trends IMO, is the choice of actresses to portray Aurora and Hildegart. They're good actress and do a good job, to be clear. But boy, they look NOTHING like their real-life counterparts. They're not even prettified-within-characterisation versions, women who look similar but fit beauty standards (and specifically Hollywood beauty standards) much better. They're straight up nothing alike. And with Aurora, I can't help but think this would've been a double-edged sword (I can just imagine what a film would've done with an ugly woman in this role), but with Hildegart, the choice of going with a waif-like actress that in no way looks like the photographs we have of a chubby, baby-faced Aurora seems very, very pointed to me.
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