Kiti Mánver: "Religion is also pure eroticism"

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Kiti Mánver (Antequera, 1953)

flies.

And it is not so much a metaphor, perhaps also, as a proven fact.

has just started today ,

and in full change of planes in Paris, the Andalusian actress speaks as the most brilliant representation of Spanish cinema in the event created and encouraged by Robert Redford.

And she does it with the background noise of the airport public address system, which is also very cinematic.

"There is no age to be young and discover new places," she says.

She is the protagonist of the movie '

', by

, where he gives life to a woman who one good -and late- day discovers the grace of sex.

The tape tells the story of a woman who, having known a man (and even a husband), doesn't know what an orgasm is.

Devoted to Jesus, Maria, her daughter and her granddaughter, stumbles across a porn page because of the internet.

Between that and the Biblical Song of Songs that she hears at mass, what follows is a real fire;

a fire that first ignites inside and then destroys everything.

"I don't think that the film can be considered transgressive in any way.

The strange thing is that someone could consider something like this strange. Perhaps the problem is not with the film, but with us as a society", she says by way of introduction while being proud and happy that the not-so-invisible barrier that for decades has prevented cinema from showing older women doing things other than simply being older is falling.

Little by little.

"If we look a little bit and if we are honest, we would have to admit that

Why have we been deaf and blind to this for so long?", she says to herself and says to whoever wants to listen. She says it by the way with this one and with the not so distant referent of the production '

, which she went through the Malaga Festival in 2020 and which won her the best actress award.

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To situate ourselves, '

' belongs to the genre of films built from within, from the intimacy of the breathing of its characters.

In it, Mánver gives life to a believing woman who divides her days between the local parish ("It's not that she stayed to dress saints, she simply dresses them, but with joy," she says) and the longing for the home of a daughter who work outside of Spain.

In the middle, her husband.

Or what's left of it.

She talks to her daughter through a screen that suddenly becomes a window to other worlds.

The same device that is used for family reunions is transformed into a tool and a mirror with which to see and even manipulate one's own body.

I remember that I met a woman with a similar experience to Cruz, my character.

I had never found pleasure in sex and tried to help her.

When she told her husband to come with her to therapy, he refused because he considered it dirty.

Those things happen.

And in part the Catholic Church has had a lot to do with it.

Maybe now everything has relaxed a bit because those of us who are 70 years old were hippies.

But

, she comments, convinced that the function of cinema, if not educational, could well be cathartic: to see in others what you should see in yourself.

Kiti Mánver in a moment of 'Mamacruz'.JULIOVERGNE

On the matter of religion cited by the actress, the film affects from its own poster.

There Kiti is seen kissing, and doing it with authentic and real desire, Christ himself.

In reality, and as the protagonist herself insists, this, that of religion, is no more than a minimal part of Patricia Ortega's proposal, but it is clearly visible.

"I am unable to see any problem in that image. It seems to me essentially beautiful. In it the lovers are confused. I don't know very well who is the image, the sculpture, and who is the person. I don't see how it can bother someone because their intention is just the opposite", reasons Mánver.

And he continues:

or, as was my reference during the filming, in the texts of Santa Teresa de la Cruz.

When she speaks of the ecstasy and happiness that being with God brings her, she speaks of a feeling that is not only spiritual, but also physical.

She talks about the pleasure it gives her.

Of the great pleasure it gives him, says the good woman.

In short, it is the description of the elevation of a woman who has not lost desire.

It is clear.

How would you define your relationship with religion? I grew up and was educated in a convent school, but let's say that I am more spiritual than religious.

That religion thing confuses me.

Especially when you see the Church give you a roll and then act in a completely different way.

And it doesn't fit me.

The actress says that she is happy to witness first-hand the emergence of new narratives in which women are the protagonists.

"It is a phenomenon that is being seen all over the world, in Malaga and in Salt Lake City. In truth, it is the recognition of something as obvious as that women have a lot to contribute to society, to everyone, and for a long time they will not he has been able to do it.

, she points out.

Kiti Mánver, what has been said, flies.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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