MovieChat Forums > Cría cuervos (1977) Discussion > Did Ana (heavy spoiler)

Did Ana (heavy spoiler)

posted 13 years ago by abrelosojos18
4 replies | jump to latest

Did she kill her father? She mentions the fact that she kept the poison because she had a desire to kill him. When she finds him dead, the first thing she does is look for the glass of milk, expecting it to be on the night table. She finds it somewhere else in the room, takes it to the kitchen and washes it. This is exactly what she does to her aunt as well, although unsuccessfully.

I must say I'm almost completely convinced that she killed him but I'm open to other people's opinion about it.

[–] deanowest 13 years ago

Her intentions may have been to kill her aunt, but we know the poison is not poison when she offers it to her abuela. It is baking poweder.

Now could she have tried to kill her dad with the baking powder and coninsidently he had a heart attack? Maybe. but i don't think that is the point of the movie. It is about a girl discovering the inherent dishonesty in adults. and the effects of it on her.

Interesting tho'

Dictated, but not read.

[–] iamella 12 years ago

Deano, I agree with you that the main theme of the movie is a young girl's discovery of the dishonesty of adults. However, there might be a subtheme about death. Ana is too young to understand death and gets thrown off and confused from her first brush with it, her mother dying and bemoaning that she "doesn't want to die" and "they lied to her" and believing that her father was a cause of her mother's death or, at least, her mother's misery. The death theme carries on to her father, the animal, her questions to the housekeeper, her aunt, etc. In addition, until her aunt didn't die, she believed she was the cause of her father's death, informing other learning experiences as the film develops.

What an interesting film! I was lured to watch it with the word "masterpiece" in a review. So glad I did.

Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friends ~The Beatles

[–] cetaylor3 11 years ago

Just one addendum: I don't think we are to assume her aunt's survival caused Ana to rethink her role in her father's death. Even the Ana of 20 years later (played also by Geraldine Chaplin) still expresses it in a way that sounds like she's trying to understand still why she (wanted to and also indeed) killed her father. Whether the adult Ana still holds that view is somewhat ambiguous, but I think when Ana sees her Aunt still alive, it instead causes her to wonder if her Aunt has some magic power of her own that offset her own power. We the viewers see that in fact it's baking powder. Ana's memory of her mother's message about the mysterious can she gave her to dispose was that "It wasn't of use anymore" -- which probably only meant that it was expired baking soda ... but those words carried very mysterious and ominous import for Ana - and we too at that point are led to wonder if there was something implicating Ana's mother's own death - as well as Ana's appropriation of the magic can as her own tool of death. But when we get visual confirmation that it was baking soda, it confirms for us viewers that this is part of the magical-thinking of childhood that Ana was captivated by ... and seemingly some of it still lingers in Ana the adult.

[–] alfonso-jaramillo 11 years ago

I still think she killed her dad. Cria cuervos y te sacaran los ojos! Raise crows and they'll peck your eyes out! As the saying goes.