It
seems like everybody picks on Anina Yatay Salas. She’s a kid, you see. She’s a good kid though, who will be getting
the sort of lessons that will make her a good grown-up in Alfredo Soderguit’s
animated feature, AninA (trailer here), which screens
this weekend during the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 2013 Latinbeat.
The
Spanish work for palindrome is capicúa, a fact young Anina knows only too
well. She has three of them in her name,
which she finds rather excessive. Her
Ned Flanders-ish father thought it was delightful, but the bratty kids at
school delight in taunting her with the word “capicúa.” Still, she has good friends, like Florencia,
but certainly not Yisel. During one
fateful recess, an innocent stumble leads to a playground dust-up and a mutual
trip to the principal’s office. As
punishment, both she and Yisel receive mysterious sealed envelopes only to be
opened in the principal’s presence, the following week.
Obsessing
over her scarlet envelope, Anina and Florencia start following Yisel, in hopes
of sneaking a peek inside hers. However,
to her considerable surprise, Anina starts sharing strange bonding moments with
her nemesis at school, stemming from their gossip-spawning punishment.
AninA is a wonderfully
innocent and endearing film with absolutely no objectionable material whatsoever. Adults will probably have a good idea where
it is headed, but they will approve every step of the way. Adapting Sergio López Suárez’s book for young
readers (which he illustrated), Soderguit maintains a similarly gentle
style. His simple figures are rather
soothing, evoking nostalgia for the old fashioned children’s books of eras gone
by.
