''Magical Girl'' (titled ''La niña de fuego'' in France) is a 2014

neo-noir Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating ...

film written and directed by Carlos Vermut, and starring

Bárbara Lennie Bárbara Lennie Holguín (born 20 April 1984) is a Spanish actress, hailed as an indie cinema star. She won the Goya Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 2014 neo-noir drama '' Magical Girl'', also scooping nominations for ''Obaba'' ...

Luis Bermejo Luis Bermejo Rojo (12 August 1931 – 12 December 2015) was a Spanish illustrator and comics artist known for his work published in Spain, Italy, Great Britain, and the United States. He has illustrated a number of novels, and worked for a while ...

and

José Sacristán José María Sacristán Turiégano (born 27 September 1937), better known as José Sacristán, is a Spanish film, theatre, and television actor. At Gijón International Film Festival in 2015, he received the Nacho Martinez, Nacho Martinez Awar ...

. The plot tracks the events unraveling upon the decision of a father (Bermejo) to fulfill the secret wish of his dying 12-year-old ''

otaku is a Japanese word that describes people with consuming interests, particularly in anime, manga, video games, or computers. Its contemporary use originated with a 1983 essay by Akio Nakamori in '' Manga Burikko''. may be used as a pejorat ...

'' daughter (Pollán). The film made its world premiere at the

39th Toronto International Film Festival The 39th annual Toronto International Film Festival, the 39th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held in Canada from 4–14 September 2014. David Dobkin's film '' The Judge'', starring Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Du ...

in September 2014, also screening at the 62nd

San Sebastián International Film Festival The San Sebastián International Film Festival ( SSIFF; es, Festival Internacional de San Sebastián, eu, Donostia Zinemaldia) is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spanish city of Donostia-San Sebastián in September, in ...

, where it scooped the

Golden Shell The Golden Shell ( es, Concha de Oro; eu, Urrezko Maskorra) is the highest prize given to a competing film at the San Sebastián Film Festival. It was introduced in 1957. In 1953 and 1954, the highest prize had been called the Gran Premio. In 19 ...

and the Silver Shell. Lennie won the

Goya Award for Best Actress The Goya Award for Best Actress (Spanish: ''Premio Goya a la mejor interpretación femenina protagonista'') is one of the Goya Awards, Spain's principal national film awards. Since its inception, the award has been given to 26 actresses. At the 1s ...

for her performance. It is a Spanish-French co-production.

Plot

A maths teacher reprimands a student named Bárbara for a note she purportedly wrote. After insulting the teacher, Bárbara plays a handtrick

illusion An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the mind normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Although illusions distort the human perception of reality, they are generally shared by most people. Illusions may oc ...

on the teacher with the note. A girl dancing to the sound of Japanese music faints in her bedroom. A man sells his belongings (books) at a

used good Used goods mean any item of personal property offered for sale not as new, including metals in any form except coins that are legal tender, but excluding books, magazines, and postage stamps. Risks Furniture, in particular bedding or upholstere ...

s store and looks with interest at a jewelry store's

display window A display window, also a shop window (British English) or store window (American English), is a window in a shop displaying items for sale or otherwise designed to attract customers to the store. Usually, the term refers to larger windows in the f ...

, later arriving home to find the former girl, Alicia, lying unconscious on the floor. Back home from the hospital, the man (Luis, Alicia's father), grants Alicia (known as Yukiko in her ''

'' circle) a number of wishes. Upon reading Alicia's

diary A diary is a written or audiovisual record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digital. A personal ...

, Luis commits to gifting Alicia a Magical Girl Yukiko costume costing

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...

6,845, and asks a bar owner (Marisol) for money in order to satisfy the secret wish of her 12-year-old daughter Alicia (sick with

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...

). A desperate Luis decides to break the aforementioned shop window glass, but

vomit Vomiting (also known as emesis and throwing up) is the involuntary, forceful expulsion of the contents of one's stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose. Vomiting can be the result of ailments like food poisoning, gastroenterit ...

falls on him from above just before breaking it. A man and a woman (Bárbara) discuss in their bedroom, after which Bárbara pretends to ingest her medication. After taking a friends' baby in her arms, Bárbara jokes with throwing the baby out of the window. Bárbara wakes up at night and hurts her forehead with a mirror. After ingesting alcohol and pills, she vomits out the window on Luis, and invites him to her appartment so he can take a shower. Upon learning that Bárbara's husband is a rich psychiatrist and after presenting himself as an

unemployed Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refere ...

literature teacher named Pedro, Luis has sex with Bárbara. After claiming to have recorded them having sex with his phone, Luis blackmails Bárbara into getting him €7,000, threatening her with telling her husband. Bárbara asks a madam named Ada for money, offering to prostitute herself, thereby getting a one-time job without penetration at Óliver Zoco's residence. Taken to a remote mansion by a chauffeur-driven car, Bárbara is asked there to remove her clothes and to remember a BDSM

safeword In BDSM, a safeword is a code word, series of code words or other signal used by a person to communicate their physical or emotional state, typically when approaching, or crossing, a physical, emotional, or moral boundary. Some safewords are used ...

('hojalata') before entering a room. Luis asks Bárbara to leave the money inside a

Spanish Constitution The Spanish Constitution (Spanish, Asturleonese, and gl, Constitución Española; eu, Espainiako Konstituzioa; ca, Constitució Espanyola; oc, Constitucion espanhòla) is the democratic law that is supreme in the Kingdom of Spain. It was e ...

book hosted in a public library near Puerta de Toledo. After gifting the dress to Alicia, Luis finds out that the set is missing the scepter, sold as an add-on. Luis then blackmails Bárbara again into giving him another €20,000. Bárbara offers to do a job behind Óliver's black lizard door, where unspeakable things are done, discouragement by Ada notwithstanding. Introduced as Damián, the teacher from the opening scene (now an old man) does not want to leave prison, because he is afraid of seeing Bárbara again. Damián finds a badly wounded Bárbara lying on the stairs of his appartment and takes her in, calling an ambulance. Bárbara asks Damián to leave the Constitution in the public library. Bárbara's husband, introduced as Alfredo, thanks Damián for taking care of his wife. At the hospital, Bárbara falsely suggests Damián that she has been

raped Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or agai ...

by her blackmailer. After obtaining a

gun A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, p ...

, Damián follows Luis into a bar, introduces to him as a man sent to prison for having helped Bárbara, and provides Luis with the gun so he can kill him in plain sight, threatening with killing Luis' family otherwise. Failing to believe's Luis' version of the events and convinced that Luis raped Bárbara, Damián kills Luis and the two other witnesses at the bar. Damián goes to Luis appartment to look for the latter's phone, meeting Alicia, fully dressed with the Yukiko Magical Girl dress and holding the scepter. Damián shoots her. Damián visits Bárbara and tells her that he has taken care of everything, playing on her the same trick with the phone that she played on him with the note years ago.

Cast

Influences on the film

Carlos Vermut had stated that the film bears the influence influenced of the popular dark magical girl anime '' Puella Magi Madoka Magica''. Carlos stated he liked the story in Madoka and that " ereceived inspiration from the dark part of ..."Madoka Magica", not just imitating, but matching it with the image I was thinking and putting it in ''Magical Girl''."

Production

A co-production among Spain and France (90%–10%), ''Magical Girl'' was produced by Aquí y Allí Films, with the participation of Films Distribution, Sabre Producciones, TVE and

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

. Shooting locations in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

included Calle de Felipe Castro, Glorieta de Puerta de Toledo, , and .

Release

The film was screened at the

2014 Toronto International Film Festival The 39th annual Toronto International Film Festival, the 39th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held in Canada from 4–14 September 2014. David Dobkin's film '' The Judge'', starring Robert Downey Jr. and Robert D ...

and the 2014

, where it won the

. Distributed by Avalon, it was theatrically released in Spain on 17 October 2014. It opened in French theatres on 12 August 2015, under the title ''La niña de fuego''.

Reception

On the review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, 100% of 8 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 9.0/10. Jonathan Holland of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...

'' considered the film to be "a spare, austere and thoroughly contemporary noirish social critique constructed on rich emotional foundation". Peter Debruge of ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' considered the lack of relatable human behavior the film, "an elaborately contrived, imagination-dependent dark comedy", to be both an asset and a weakness.

Accolades

, - , align = "center" rowspan = "2" , 2014 , , rowspan=2 , 62nd

, colspan=2 , Golden Shell for Best Film , , , rowspan = "2" , , - ,

Silver Shell for Best Director The Silver Shell for Best Director ( es, Concha de Plata al Mejor Director; eu, Zuzendari Onenaren Zilarrezko Maskorra) is one of the main awards presented at the San Sebastián Film Festival to the director of a competing film. Award winners ...

, Carlos Vermut , , - , rowspan = "20" align = "center" , 2015 , , rowspan = "3" ,

20th Forqué Awards The 20th Forqué Awards were presented on 12 January 2015 at the Palacio Municipal de Congresos in Madrid. The gala, broadcast on La 1, was hosted by Ana Morgade. History The nominations for all the competitive categories (except for the Bes ...

, , colspan = "2" , Best Fiction Picture , , , , rowspan = "3" , , - , Best Actress , , Bárbara Lennie , , , - , Best Actor , , José Sacristán , , , - , rowspan=8 ,

2nd Feroz Awards The 2nd ceremony of the Feroz Awards was held at the Gran Teatro Ruedo Las Ventas in Madrid, on January 25, 2015. It was hosted by actress Bárbara Santa-Cruz and aired on Canal+ Spain. Winners and nominees The nominees were announced on Decembe ...

, colspan=2 , Best Drama Film , , , rowspan = "8" , , - ,

Best Director Best Director is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards. It may refer to: Film awards * AACTA Award for Best Direction * Academy Award for Best Director * BA ...

, Carlos Vermut , , - , Best Screenplay , Carlos Vermut , , - , Best Main Actor , Luis Bermejo , , - , Best Main Actress , Bárbara Lennie , , - , Best Supporting Actor , José Sacristán , , - , colspan=2 , Best Trailer , , - , colspan=2 , Best Film Poster , , - , 7th

Gaudí Awards The Gaudí Awards ( ca, Premis Gaudí) are the main film awards of Catalonia, celebrated annually in Barcelona. The awards were established in 2009 by the Catalan Film Academy as a continuation and expansion of the Barcelona Cinema Awards (''Premi ...

, , colspan = "2" , Best European Film , , , , , - , rowspan=8 ,

29th Goya Awards The 29th Goya Awards were presented at the Madrid Marriott Auditorium Hotel in Madrid on February 7, 2015 to honour the best in Spanish films of 2014. Actor and comedian Dani Rovira was the master of ceremonies. Nominees were announced on January ...

, colspan=2 ,

Best Film This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

, , , rowspan = "8" , , - ,

, Carlos Vermut , , - ,

Best Original Screenplay The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Beginning with the ...

, Carlos Vermut , , - , Best Actor , Luis Bermejo , , - ,

Best Actress Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress aw ...

, Bárbara Lennie , , - , Best Supporting Actor , José Sacristán , , - , Best New Actor , Israel Elejalde , , -

References

External links

* * {{Golden Shell 2014 films 2014 thriller drama films 2010s French films 2010s Spanish films 2010s Spanish-language films Aquí y Allí Films films Films about father–daughter relationships Films set in Madrid Films shot in Madrid French neo-noir films French thriller drama films Magical girl films Spanish neo-noir films Spanish thriller drama films Spanish-language French films