a film by Lucrecia Martel
Two families spend the summer in the mountains of Salta in north-western Argentina. We hear the insistent clinking of ice cubes in glasses, the scrape of metal chairs on a concrete patio; we observe people splayed in beds trying to sleep through the humidity. Before long, the crowded domestic situation in both homes strains the families' nerves, exposing repressed family mysteries, and tensions that threaten to erupt into violence.
Mecha, the family matriarch, lives in a dilapidated country retreat near La Ciénaga with her husband Gregorio and her teenage children. The humidity is stifling and the only pastime the adults can think of is to drink – constantly. One drinking session by the pool leads to a trip to the hospital, leaving the children, with no adult supervision, to their own devices – sunbathing, hunting, dancing, driving illegally, and diving in the stagnant pool. The only adults who seem to care at all are the Indian servants who are constantly being harassed by Mecha for allegedly stealing towels. What unfolds is a subtle and sly look at intimacies of a middle-class family in crisis, with the microscope artfully observing the infidelities, alliances, prejudices and secret infatuations.
The many disturbing, and somewhat confusing images and dialogue, succeed in conveying the oppression, ills and limitations that plague the lives of the characters. This stunning 2001 debut feature from writer/director Lucrecia Martel offers a glimpse into Argentina's dysfunctional class dynamics and tortured race relations. Its striking and almost feral imagery creates a hypnotic portrait of the torpor and decadence of a decaying bourgeois society.
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