Who was Aurora Rodríguez Carballeira and what made her become the obsessed narcissistic mother of Hildegart? So little is known about this woman but much is known about Hildegart because of her writings. She was conceived sometime in 1914 and born at the end of the year on December 9th in Ferrol, Spain. She died 18 years later at the hands of her mother’s gun. In the meantime, she was the protégé of her mother, who held her emotionally and sometimes physically captive in their home where she was under the “protection” of her mother. We only have the Spanish movie “The Red Virgin,” to give us a glimpse of what the screenplay writer wants us to know and understand.

In her 18 years, her mother seemed capable of teaching her three other languages, how to type, and enough philosophical and sexual knowledge to be able to hold speeches on sexuality and feminism by the age of 11. She did so much more in real life than the movie wishes us to know. She gained a law degree by the age of 17. She wasn’t literally captive in her home but the movie focused on this because it wanted us to understand how deep the emotional ties went. If they had showed us more, we might not have been able to feel it as much as we were supposed to. And, I do not deny that it makes sense, it is a good movie. You will learn more about Hildegart from reading about her on Wikipedia. And, where can we read one of her books? Books that were written by an intellectual who was talking about subjects she knew absolutely nothing about. They were fed to her by her mother. It is possible she had love, according to the movie, but not sex. Her knowledge was about as feeble as a child thinking they should be another sex in today’s day and age. Yet, I would love to find out what she had to say.

Aurora is another story. A strange and deeply trouble woman. She first raised her sister’s son, Pepito and turned him into a musician somehow and he became so good at this, her sister took him back to raise as her own. Having lost her first love, a child that was not even hers, she went on to find a way to have a child of her own, with a priest who would never admit to having had sex, so she could raise the child without a father. She turned this child into a project and when she felt she had failed in this mission, she killed her. Evidently, she felt she had a right to, because she owned and taught this child, so she could annihilate her when she became a nuisance. How did she have this penchant for raising geniuses?

What I loved about the movie, was the way they used a mannequin – a sculpted piece of non-human existence to visually show Aurora breaking down. We didn’t need it, because the actors are very good at showing without telling, but it seemed necessary to drive it home. Also, the apartment in which the two women lived in, looked somewhat like a prison. The long hallways, with, I believe bars around the inner part of the home. The long cascading circular stairway conveyed suspense and drama in scenes where they were coming and going. The graffiti in the hallway of strangers confused by the strangeness of this eccentric mother.

Aurora’s obsession is much like Heathcliff’s for Catherine in Wuthering Heights. Although, the difference being that Aurora had more power over Hildegart than Heathcliff for Catherine. Both women die. These narcissistic delusions take control over people’s minds. In Wuthering Heights, a dark “romantic” novel written in 1847 by Emily Brontë, Heathcliff broods all the rest of his life, taking his anguish out on everyone around him. Aurora has no one else, except herself and her thoughts – and a gun.

You look at the murder which occurs when Hildegart begins to want to step out of her mother’s shadow and go out in the world on her own. The narcissistic mother is on a pedestal, generally until puberty, by the child who knows no better. Hildegart may have had a young education, but she was still so very naïve to the wonders of the world, as she lived under her mother’s thumb. When other people began to witness Hildegart, at some point in her short life – post puberty, she began to feel free enough to let go – she just had no idea the depths in which her mother’s obsession could really go or what she was capable of. She was a robot, a clone of her mother. She was not psychologically stable herself because she was not allowed to be herself. It is similar to children now who are being indoctrinated into a gender pick world by teachers and parents. They don’t know who they are, but are trying to do what their parents/teachers wish. Trying to please to make them happy. Will they ever be themselves? Spending their lives trying to please the narcissist, thereby losing their sense of self. In today’s world, losing their entire self not just spiritually and emotionally but physically as well.

The Red Virgin is “red” because she is a communist. A self-absorbed organization like any other political regime but who feel no need for socialization – comrades. Who are anti-theism – lack spirituality as they hate religion. Want everyone to form a coop and live in a commune – off of each other. It sounds romantic in a sense, but only if everyone is truly choosing this life and without the pressure of others. This never happens because someone is always in charge. Hildegart never has sex. Her mother shoots her in the vagina and in the head. She is destroying her sexuality and the face she wants no one to see. A mirror image of herself – the woman destroying the woman she has created. She is disgusted with herself so she shoots the mirror – not herself. If she breaks the glass, she can no longer see what is in front of her.

Aurora spent most of the rest of her life behind bars and then in a psychiatric institution. I am not clear why they changed her living arrangements. Too bad there weren’t better psychologists in those days who understood psychopaths as we do today. How interesting it would be to have a complete psychological evaluation. The story is over, with the exception of finding Hildegart’s books and hoping they are translated into our own language. Watching the movie and getting the director’s cut from the screenplay writer’s story. Reading Wikipedia’s article on Hildegart and determining for yourself, what the hell happened?