Cold and silent, filled with tension and discomfort, After Lucia is a 2012 film from Mexico that offers a raw portrait of bullying and the indifference to consequence that comes when all is believed to be lost. In a style best described as “akin to Michael Haneke’s,” writer / director Michel Franco gives us Roberto and Alejandra (Tessa Ia), a father and daughter who move from Puerto Vallarta to Mexico in order to leave behind the tragic death of his wife and her mother. She dies in a car accident, but there is vagueness as to who was driving and how the crash was caused. Was it Alejandra learning to drive? We never get closure on this, but it seems that neither do our protagonists, preferring to elide the facts of the accident. In one scene Alejandra notes that her “mom stayed in Puerto Vallarta” and their migration was impelled by Robert’s desire to open a restaurant in Mexico.
The latter half is true, but the mother’s death is erased from Alejandra’s story. Is it because she doesn’t want to get into specifics and implicate herself in her mother’s death? Possibly, but this again is unclear.
After Lucia is comprised of glimpses and moments. We will only see a few weeks of Roberto and Alejandra, sometime between the mother’s death and the closing scene that leaves us chilled and haunted, realizing that an awareness of consequence is supplanted by indifference when all is believed to be lost.
The movie begins with Roberto picking up the recently repaired car in which his wife perished. As we sit in the backseat of the car from the camera’s perspective, we hear in the distance the list of repairs done to refurbish the car. From here, we are driven to an intersection, images in front of us and those reflected in the rearview and side mirrors reminds us that the living present is a convergence of past, present, and future. Ultimately, Roberto parks the car in an intersection, leaves the keys on the dashboard and walks away from the car. Presumably to his home for the next few moments before he and Alejandra drive for ten hours in another vehicle to their new apartment.
From his wife’s death, Roberto is depressive and prone to aggression – though never toward Alejandra. He treats her like a peer and assumes that all is going well. His perception is dulled and he needs her to keep him on track, to keep him employed, and to keep his patience in check. Such responsibility set on Alejandra’s shoulders forces her to grow up quicker than, perhaps, she should.
As the new girl in school, she tries to fit in where she can, landing in a group of teenagers who drink, smoke pot, and hook up at parties. In truth, it’s pretty par-for-the-course in teenage life – and then she has drunken sex with a Jose, boy who records it on his iPhone. The video soon goes viral throughout the school. Jose protests that he did not send the video, that someone must have stolen his phone during the party, and that he’s “in the video too.” While Jose’s admission that he’s present in the video is well is slightly admirable, Ale gets the brunt of stigmas, castigation and bullying. Here, After Lucia explores the contemporary version of being an unwed, pregnant woman. Now, Ale doesn’t get pregnant, but, historically in literature, pregnancy was the visible sign of transgression and potential adultery. (Hell, Shakespeare made a living writing about this in The Winter’s Tale, Much Ado About Nothing, Cymbeline, among others.)
The pregnant girl in high school suffers the same ribbing and stigmatizing. She was clearly not the only one having sex – as is also apparent in After Lucia – she’s just the one who has obviously been having sex. The same obviousness is presented via the sex tape. This visual proof overrides others’ transgressions, perversions, and harassments.
It also creates an inescapable circuit of bullying. As Alejandra gets to know the group, she grows close with Camille, but this friendship disintegrates after the video is spread. While humiliating for Ale, the perverse sexual attention that she draws irks Camille and other girls because they are no longer receiving the attention. This creates envy, which kindles aggression that manifests itself in slapping Ale, chopping off her hair, forcing her to eat a cake with unknown, disgusting ingredient that look like pieces of shit. But, the filmmaker leaves this up to the audience.
These shots are unflinching and powerfully so. We are unable to stop the students’ attacks, and Michel Franco refuses to cut away, placing us in the moment, positioning us on the bullies’ visual levels, watching Ale, unsaved by cuts, pans, or tilts of the camera.
Within After Lucia, there is an exploration of the always-on, always connected culture, but toward the end, it feels more about shirking responsibility. When facts about events come to light, the teenagers are exonerated because they are in fact teenagers, or “minors.” The adults are tasked with responsibility, but herein lies the rub: if teenagers are given adult responsibilities and trusted to act like adults, then shouldn’t they be treated like adults? Shouldn’t they suffer the consequences?
One of them does – in a “wow” moment at the end of the film that echoes Funny Games.
And in the end, I also wonder whether After Lucia intends to point out the disparity between how we view sex tapes in comparison to the rest of the world, given that a handful of wealthy folks have gained quite a bit of attention by starring in some that are accidently “leaked.” Openly glamourizing sex tapes would go against our inherently prudish and repressed nature, but a handful of careers have been launched by them. Furthermore, sex and nudity are often ways to clear a path to Academy Awards and critical acclaim.
Perhaps this is coincidence, but it’s something to think about.
