Review for ‘‘Dora’’ by Julián De La Chica

What do pandemic measures mean for an already disprivileged immigrant worker? How does each of us process loss? What do we owe to our long-distance relationships with loved ones? Director, writer & producer Julián De La Chica’s short film ‘Dora’ confronts us with these questions over its floaty, dreamy runtime.

The film carves a thin slice of Dora’s everyday life as her work, family relations, love life, and her sex work are thrown off balance due to the covid-19 pandemic. A profoundly erotic and melancholic film, it kept us glued to the screen until its last, revelatory moment. From its ethereal cold open with its perfect framing, through the achingly awkward or emotional phone conversations and until its last moments of heartbreak, ‘Dora’ grips you with its black & white siren song of an experience.

Technically, the film’s editing and direction are a triumph, expertly weaving scenes together to produce an experience that is minimalist yet pregnant with meaning and symbolism. The music, although nothing standout, competently frames Dora’s story. The start-stop nature of the majority of Dora’s dialogues over the phone serves to underline the stunted nature of interpersonal contact during the pandemic, however its implementation can grow tiring over the film’s course. The excellent cast however handily counterbalances these faults through their relatable and expressive performances.

In the end, although cinema may not be the usual purview of accomplished Colombian composer Julián De La Chica, his short ‘Dora’ accomplishes some very impressive cinematic feats, both technically and aesthetically, in addition to being an excellent character study of the protagonist of the same name.