El empleado y el patrón

Summary

The film by the Uruguayan Manolo Nieto clearly poses a class conflict, but modifying certain aspects with which this problem is expressed in general and with an ominous charge that brings it closer to a "low intensity" thriller. I consider that the look it provides is controversial: personally, it left me with a reactionary and perhaps slightly misogynistic aftertaste.

Review:

Rodrigo (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) is a young landowner who is in charge of one of the fields of his father (Jean Pierre Noher) in the north of Uruguay on the border with Brazil. He is married to Federica (Justina Bustos) and they have a very young son with probable health problems. Faced with the need to drive a harvester, he hires Carlos (Cristian Borges), a young man from the area who is also married and has a young daughter. An unexpected situation will strain the relationship between both families.

The core of the film by the Uruguayan Manolo Nieto clearly poses a class conflict, but modifying certain aspects in which this problem is expressed in general, avoiding an obvious bipolarity. Basically, this change occurs in the type of landowner that Rodrigo is, far from the stereotypes that are assigned to someone of his social position and that imprints a different dynamic on the conflict and the relationship with the hermetic Carlos and his family; at times there is a condescension reminiscent of Chabrol's ceremony (a film with which he has more than one point of contact).

The class conflict (exacerbated by the specific situation that should not be revealed) manifests itself on different planes, some explicit (and partly off-screen) and others framed within the framework of the possible, the latent and the negotiation. In this sense, the ominous charge of the film is notable: the viewer feels at all times that something can disturb the (apparent) calm of the situations, the precarious harmony sustained by the protagonists, which leads the film to the path of an untraditional thriller. Carlos's secrecy does its thing.

Nieto's description of the work in the field, of the field itself, of the inhabitants of that border and of a subplot related to a competition with horses shows a great skill in the staging that at times borders on the documentary.

The conclusions about the faceted look of the film on the class conflict raised in it I consider that they are not exempt from controversy. Without being categorical, the set left me with a reactionary and perhaps slightly misogynistic aftertaste. I hope to be wrong.

Even though it wasn't exactly my type of movie, there is nothing for me to complain about in it. There's one major event, but the movie never acts as if it's a big deal, and the rest of the duration is the characters reacting to it. In real life people don't overreact to most things, and in that sense, it's realistic. That also is because neither the protagonist nor the antagonist are bad people. Just regular ones who have a very shitty situation happen to them. Thought it never seems shitty, because everything is taken with calm. You might even think that they don't even care about it.

The acting is well done. You might think you are watching real people. The cinematography is extremely good, some shots are framed in a way that you don't know what the characters are intending to do, and that generates a lot of tension.

One review here says that the movie is predictable. Well, life can be very predictable sometimes. And that predictability makes you even more anxious, because you know something is coming and you won't be able to do anything about it.

Overall, I give it the movie a 7/10, but for some people it might even be an 8/10.

Like eating at the kids table, the conversation is sincere, but predictable and all over the place.

This Uruguayan film has about 5 false starts before it drops all of them to tell an earnest tale that won't surprise you in the least.