Gaby

By Tim Christison

How can I scream when I can’t talk?
How can I stop loving with the seed of a woman inside?
God, if life is so many things that I am not, and never will be, give me the strength to be what I am.
Gabriela Brimmer

With a stunning sense of reality, director Luis Mandoki has brought the screen the true life triumphs of Gabriella Brimmer, a Mexican author unable to speak or move her hands. She wrote the book on which the movie is based as a struggle for self-expression, using her left foot on an electric typewriter.

Taking all the elements of good entertainment, in a sensitive but totally unsentimental way, Mandoki presents Gaby’s story. The daughter of a wealthy family in Mexico, Gaby was born disabled, and until an uneducated servant woman Nanna/Florenzia (Norma Aleandro) understands the child’s search for expression, the much loved but misunderstood child is frustrated. Nanna takes over her care and training. Despite many frustrations, eventually, Gaby attends school and falls in love with Fernando, also handicapped.

In a love scene that has been acclaimed by critics from the New York Times as one of the best of the great love scenes of all time, the two young people reveal their determination to be truly alive.

The reaction of Nanna and Gaby’s mother (Liv Ullmann) are even more revealing of the understanding and true acceptance of Gaby, her condition and her right to all that life has to offer.

In bringing this courageous woman’s story to the screen, Mandoki and others have shown incredible dedication to detail. Rachel Levin (Gaby) and Lawrence Monoson (Fernando) became immersed in the lives of the disabled by attending the school used in the film, and by going about in their wheelchairs in public and in character to gauge the reactions of strangers to their condition.

If anyone had asked me, I would have called this film “Gaby – A Love Story”, not because she and Fernando live happily ever after, because they don’t. No, I’d call it a love story, not just because the love of Gaby’s family is commendable – which it is – but because Nanna loves Gaby in exactly the same way in which she needs to be loved. She dedicates her whole life and her whole being to Gaby and her needs. She loves, protects and encourages her, even to the present time. It’s a love unfamiliar in our culture, where serving and passivity are synonymous, but Norma Aleandro, in a basically non-verbal role imparts the strength of serving perfectly.

She is more complete with Gaby and Gaby owes much of what she has accomplished to Nanna’s dedication. Nanna is Gaby’s body.

Despite its short theatrical life, this movie, now available on home video, is one that you can take home and to your heart. Tender and touching, it will help anyone understand that the limitations on the afflicted are in the minds of others. It is the most life affirming production in a very long time about several people who love life. And that’s a love we can all understand.