Carmen & Lola – Carmen y Lola (2018)

Directed by: Arantxa Echevarría | 103 minutes | drama | Actors: Zaira Romero, Rosy Rodríguez, Moreno Borja, Rafaela León, Carolina Yuste, Antonio Heredia, Susana Campos, Juan José Jiménez, Lucas Heredia, Jacqueline Jiménez, Carolina África Martín, Sandra Toral, Javier I. Bustamente, Rosario Campos

‘Carmen & Lola’ is set in a Roma community in Madrid. Traditions, norms and values ​​are strongly anchored in this mini-society. The 21st century hardly seems to have a hold on the people; although the girls dress modern and some young people have a mobile phone (without fathers knowing). Seventeen-year-old Carmen (Rosy Rodríguez) is such a traditional girl. She knows what is expected of her: getting married, taking care of her husband and having children. She may still be able to work as a hairdresser somewhere, but her dreams do not extend much further. Until her engagement, she is not really allowed to hang out with Rafa, but the lavish party is already planned.

Sixteen-year-old Lola (Zaira Romero) is a little more rebellious. She is serious about her school and dreams of a career as a teacher. She can use her imagination in her art: she is a graffiti artist. Her (illiterate) parents also insist that she has to think about her future. There are plenty of nice gitanos in the church, shouldn’t she even get engaged? But Lola already knows she doesn’t like boys. She secretly explores her desires in an internet cafe. Then the two young women meet at the market where they both help their fathers in the stall. For Lola it is instant love, for Carmen the beginning of a nice friendship. Coincidentally, Lola is the niece of her fiancé-to-be, how nice is it to already know someone from his family and secretly smoke cigarettes with them?

Of course, it doesn’t take long for shy, introverted Lola to express her feelings to Carmen. Carmen’s reaction isn’t anything Lola was hoping for. Yet ‘Carmen & Lola’ follows a well-known pattern afterwards. Nowhere is the viewer led astray; you know that the love of the two—however sincere and destined it may be—will be condemned by virtually everyone around them and the repercussions will be disastrous. This feature debut by documentary filmmaker Arantxa Echevarría is in many ways similar to the Kenyan ‘Rafiki’, which premiered at the same time at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 and which was also about two enamored young women whose love was not accepted by the community. Echevarría makes her point with slightly less force than her Kenyan counterpart, but the tears are just as salty and the cast almost entirely made up of amateurs is very impressive.