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Severina

Name: Severina
Director: Felipe Hirsch
Released: 2017
Duration: 103 min

Representation Score

8.8/10

Excellent

2017

Director

Felipe Hirsch

Runtime

103 minutes

Average Rating

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New Showbiz Analysis

Severina is a highly stylized, impressionistic drama that prioritizes psychological depth over straightforward storytelling. It serves as a postmodern exploration of individual experience, using a fragmented structure to challenge the viewer's sense of reality. The film successfully subverts traditional norms by focusing on female subjectivity and exploring non-traditional desires. Its Chilean roots provide a culturally authentic, non-Western perspective that avoids the homogenization common in mainstream cinema. However, the film lacks specific representation of disability, even though it delves into mental states and existential detachment.

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Category Breakdown

Does Severina have LGBTQ+ representation?

Good

The film explores non-traditional desires and intimate relationships without labeling them explicitly. It uses queer theory to break down conventional romance and resist typical relationship paths.

How does Severina portray gender?

Good

The story focuses on the female experience, emphasizing the protagonist's inner world and feelings of isolation. It challenges traditional masculine roles by exploring complex psychological aspects.

How racially and ethnically diverse is Severina?

Good

Reflecting its Chilean setting, the film features a mostly Latin American cast. This provides a culturally specific perspective on urban alienation, offering a non-Western viewpoint.

How does Severina represent religion and culture?

Good

The film emphasizes existential and aesthetic questions over institutional morality. It uses postmodern ideas to challenge traditional Western institutions and the concept of a stable social order.

Does Severina include disability representation?

Fair

There is no prominent or central depiction of physical or neurodivergent disabilities. While the film explores psychological alienation, it does not use disability as a main theme.

Present on Screen

Challenges traditional norms by centering the narrative on female subjectivity and internal experiences.
Explores non-traditional desires through a lens of fluidity rather than explicit labels.
Provides a culturally authentic Latin American perspective that avoids Western homogenization.

Limited or Absent

Lacks central or prominent depictions of physical or neurodivergent disabilities.
The focus on psychological alienation does not include specific representational categories for disability.

Official Synopsis

A melancholic, aspiring writer and bookseller is shaken by the appearances and disappearances of his newfound muse who steals books from his bookstore. When he discovers that she also steals from other bookstores, he is consumed with jealousy and starts living in a kind of love delirium, on the border between fiction and reality. The closer he gets to her, the more indescribable she becomes and he begins to wonder why she steals, what are her values and who is the older man she lives with. In the end, what is real and what isn’t? And will he find a place in her life as he moves away from his own?

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