*****No spoilers here until alert*****
If you already watched this movie you may think its weird, that the characters can't really exist in real life and they don't have such behavior anywhere in the planet. You may also think the scenario may not be something you've seen before. Well, let me tell you something, actually, everything in this movie is so Uruguayan that it's out of the ordinary. I really mean "everything".
When I watched this I couldn't believe how precise it was to real Uruguayan lifestyle, most likely in the 80s and early 90s The buses shown in the movie are the same buses we took in those golden school-times. Kids ride in the same public transportation as everyone else. "School buses" that you see in American movies didn't exist.
The bus tickets, with the "return" message (which means the bus is returning to departure point), is an exact replica of bus tickets of that time, which never changed until electronic ticket machines were implemented in the 2000s.
Anina also collected bus tickets with palindrome numbers, something very common among Uruguayan kids (I particularly lost my collection, my school mates might still have theirs tho, I can imagine)
The houses, the streets, the school, the costumes, the autumn gray skies are also typical from Uruguay. The grocery store, (whose owner lets you take things and pay later, just as in real life) things are shown exactly as they exist today.
The school teachers irresponsibility during skirmish between the kids was (and is) a quite common hot topic in between school directors and parents. The old ladies, neighbors of the Yatay Salas family, were also perfectly represented to the typical old ladies neighbors of this place
The only thing I'm afraid that the movie falls short is the fact that in the private school I had a much worse experience in bullying. Uruguay actually is the kingdom of bullying at school, specially because teachers don't really care and there's no regulations that try to avoid it, unless something goes too far. You just get your parent's advise to be strong and hit back.
Also the movie focus on a state ("public") school, which is without charge in Uruguay (as they are in the USA, founded by taxation), and seems to me that is shown much more warmer than in reality. Even the school director is too good to be true, but it may be just me.
The plot itself isn't too complicated, as its focused on Anina's mind, which is just a child's mind with a lot of imagination, everything from her perspective. Think about Miyasaky's Spirited Away (an excellent animated movie by the way), but much shorter, much simpler, and real. The only fictional imagination scenes comes from Anina's dreams.
*******Spoilers alert begin here*******
Another thing that is real, and hit us hard, was emigration. The movie sensitive momentum where our hearts are touched and broken. As a lot of Uruguayans emigrated all over the world seeking for better opportunities that our own country didn't gave. I dare to tell that if nobody did emigrated, our nation would be twice as big in population as it is today.
After all, Uruguay is a 3rd world country. Its lifestyle may be decent. But not for everyone, and not everyone has a chance, leaving only one option: to leave the country
Some may just seek for a better life but one thing is for certain: no one wants to leave Uruguay, but at the same time, most Uruguayans who left are not willing to return just to find themselves in the same poverty of a emaciated hopeless medium class they abandoned when they emigrated, and also find themselves in a boring, useless country like Uruguay. If you live in Uruguay, a quiet place with a high quality education, beautiful landscapes and decent living, you really don't mind if you have just 100 dollars left for the rest of the month. But many think otherwise.
Australia is one of the top nations with the highest rate of Uruguayans immigrants. Gysele's father sent her daughter postcards telling her how she missed her. I almost cried because my mother, my sister, and my brother also emigrated, for one reason or another. Actually pretty bitter.
The movie has no dub in English language, which is a shame, because if your kids don't read the won't be able to understand. Nevertheless, I recommend this movie to anyone wanting to know, in just 70 minutes or so, how Uruguayan kids were raised, how they feel and act. It's a nice story, the animation and art is superb, the sound quality is superb. I personally loved every minute of it.
