For Your Peace of Mind, Make Your Own Museum

In her village in Panama, Senobia saw art in everything. Put a broken umbrella on a bottle and you have the head of a wild man. A stick plus a plastic cup becomes a bird. She turned her house into “The Museum of Antiquities of All Species.” There are old telephones and computers, and hanging everywhere are cards on which she wrote her thoughts. Her last wish: to keep everything in her museum as it is.

Pilar Moreno and Ana Endara tenderly portray her in a gentle, conceptual documentary, where Senobia’s spirit seems present in every shot. They film her amateur artworks as if they were exhibits in a museum. They give her fellow villagers the exact same dress as Senobia wore, interview them in her kitchen, and have them read from her diary. She was a vivacious wit, a free spirit who cared nothing for convention.

But the elderly women also break through the fourth wall and talk about their own lives. Senobia, her art, and her reflections turn out to be a wonderful vehicle to talk about loneliness, old age, femininity, and all that remains when a person no longer exists.