I got stuck sitting in the front row of my screening of Lola, because it was a nice day and I couldn't stand to go inside until the last minute. After nearly two hours of craning my neck, I walked out rubbing my shoulders and whining a bit, until my friend reminded me, hey, none of it was as bad as what the people onscreen are going through.
And, well, fair enough. Lola is the kind of foreign film that's an effective slap in the face to those whining about "first world problems," a meditative and stone-serious saga about two grandmothers in Manila, one of them burying her murdered grandson, and one representing her jailed grandson-- the murderer-- in the labyrinthine court system. Lola is the Tagalog word for grandmother, but is used by everyone to refer to the two women, from their loving family members to cops and judges who seem exaggerated by their slow-moving presence. The filthy streets of Manila are a tough place for anyone, but it's particularly hard to be a woman whom society would evidently much rather ignore.
The movie succeeds most in its smallest moments, focusing on a woman's determined face as she cares for the young men in her family, or the joy of children when fish show up in the pond underneath their water home (Lola is filmed in a fascinating corner of the city where boats are the primary mode of transportation-- imagine seeing a coffin loaded in and out of a canoe). When the film reaches to show off some kind of larger significance-- dopey American filmmakers making ignorant statements about the passing scenery on a train, significant shots of a billboard for an insurance company-- it stumbles a bit. It goes without saying that the lives led by these Lolas are unnecessarily difficult, and unimaginable from a first world perspective. In a film this capable of capturing nuance, the best way to make a statement is to say nothing at all.
By far the best reason to see the film is the two women who play the Lolas, each tough and ornery and vulnerable and beautiful in their own distinct ways. The two women only meet three times in the film, and only once for any significant period of time; it would have been great to see more of them together, to let them gripe about their great-grandchildren and dead husbands and back pains. The film's purpose is clearly to show these two as isolated from society, and building a friendship between them would have been untrue to Lola's gritty nature. Still, in a film with few things to actually look forward to, putting these two vibrant characters together would have been a treat.
Given its dark subject matter and very, very slow pace, Lola seems like a pretty unlikely contender for theatrical release, but would do well at other festivals where audiences are up for the punishment and rewards of tiny foreign films. It's not for everyone, but it sure beats most of the higher-budget, starrier offerings at Tribeca this year.
Follow along with all of our special, Tribeca 2010 coverage right here.
