Rating: 4.5/5
Criterion Challenge 2024 | 32/52 | Aubrey Plaza’a Top 10
Red bell peppers line the balcony on a humid summer day at the country estate of La Mangdrádora. Outside, Mecha, Gregorio, and friends sunbathe around the pool. Mecha’s shaking hand fills her wine glass with a stained bottle of cabernet sauvignon and a handful of ice. Mecha’s drink rings with the clanging ice. All at once, the bodies stand, dragging their chairs to another spot to better catch the sun. Mecha’s daughters, Momi and Verónica, lounge in bed to escape the heat. Momi offers a whispered prayer to God, thanking him for Isabel, one of Mecha’s Amerindian servants. She goes to lie with the napping Verónica, tears in her eyes because Mecha plans to fire Isabel, who is supposedly stealing towels and sheets.
Gunshots ring out from a hunting expedition in the nearby hills led by Joaquín. Mecha stumbles around, collecting everyone’s wine glasses. She collapses, breaking the glasses. Gregorio checks on Mecha, who claims she is fine, so he grabs another glass of wine. Isabel and Momi run outside to help her up. Blood covers Mecha’s chest from glass cuts. Momi carefully pulls shards of glass from Mecha’s chest while Isabel grabs towels to help sop up the blood. The rain starts, and one of the daughters, too young to drive, must drive Mecha to the doctor, as Mecha refuses to let Isabel drive her anywhere.
Tali, Mecha’s cousin, talks on the phone about all the travel she cannot do—her husband, Rafael, is busy with work, and she has the kids to look after. Well, they have the hired help, Agustina. Her son, Luciano, comes inside to play with the dead hare on the table. Two girls run in, drenched from water balloons outside. Luciano jumps on the counter, his leg now bleeding, trying to clean the blood off in the sink. Tali rushes Luciano to the doctor, learning of Mecha’s condition—stomach pumped and tranquilized. Gregorio was so drunk he couldn’t give blood. The doctor provides Luciano with some stitches, but he’s otherwise fine. While Mecha is recovering, Tali and Luciano join all the convening family members at La Mandrágora. Meanwhile, a news report comes in about locals seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary.
The film follows the family for the rest of the week.
I started watching this movie several months ago with someone I was seeing. We had intended to finish it, but we broke up before we could. So, the film has an extratextual pain associated with it. I mention that only to remind myself why I tagged them.
This movie is chaos. The camera trembles with the drunks and races with the runners—all the children calling for attention to their crises of the moment. Things happen—not illogically, but suddenly, and the direction of the scene changes. The cinematography is a lesson on conveying male leering without overtly casting a male gaze. It’s also a game of I Spy, where scenes are cut away before they are complete. In the following scene, we see the effects of the previous scene only once the camera moves. It’s all disorienting, but that feels intentional.
Lucrecia Martel based her screenplay on her childhood experiences but took them to unusual places to heighten her memories of the familial class structure and the pitiful wealthy who seem helpless and demand others to look after them. The older rich characters are absurd, unable to understand when the world doesn’t bend to their whims. Despite being too young, Gregorio gets upset when Verónica won’t get her license. But the young ones, too, have their strange demands, especially of the indigenous Ameridians, treating all of them in town as servants. One child lists off the most racist remarks, clearly learned from a parent in its strange specificity.
This film excels at showcasing two things: the manic energy of family gatherings and how the wealthy view everyone other than themselves.