i’d wanted to watch this argentinean film when it was released in los angeles back in 2001, but it disappeared before i could get my lazy ass off the couch. a friend mentioned watching it recently and so i put it at the top of the netflix queue and watched it last night. netflix lists it as a comedy but it didn’t feel like one to me. it is a claustrophobic portrayal of an upper-middle (?) class family going to seed, in which humidity and heat and lassitude are not just metaphors but almost characters in their own right. a large family is gathered at their decrepit country estate for the summer, and are visited briefly by cousins from the city. family secrets and shame slowly bubble out and much more is hinted at. the story of an indian maid, who may or may not be fired soon (by the casually, viciously racist mother, mecha), winds in and out, seen largely through the ambivalent gaze of a teenage daughter of the house who has a crush on her. the possibility of catastrophic violence seems always very close, and the film sustains this pregnant sense of imminent release quite effectively.
nonetheless, i found the film frustrating in parts–it took me too long to sort out which characters were in which family, for example–and i think because it is so effective in making the oppressive, sluggish atmosphere of the principal characters’ lives palpable, you might need to be in the right state of mind to watch it: it may not be the best choice of film to watch at the end of a long day. that said, i do think the film meanders a little. there’s a parallel narrative with a sighting of the virgin mary that didn’t quite fit for me, and the class/race critique could have had a little more bite. the more interesting characters for me were the indian maid, isabel, and the poorer city cousin, tali, but the director (lucrecia martel) seems more interested in mecha’s family. it didn’t finally come together for me, and i found the ending somewhat arbitrary. but it is an interesting film (and the performances are all great), and i’d be interested in reading others’ takes on it. and i’m going to watch the other film by martel that netflix has: the holy girl.