Like an intruder, something alien yet known, Virginia's sister, Renata, enters her life again, bringing forward past memories. Memories that pose the opening of unhealed wounds, because time can only do that much. Directed by Betania Cappato and Adrián Suárez, the movie blurs the limits delineating reality and fantasy in its portrayal of a calmness disrupted by an otherness. Whether in the form of ants invading Virginia's home or in the presence of her sister, there is a sense of solace coming to an end, if not abruptly. The way the film introduces us to Renata is worth considering, a shot of a hallway in which Virginia and her son are greeting their just arrived sister/aunt with Renata to a side, not clearly seen. This reinforces the aura of a foreign element and adds touches of mystery to the story. Aesthetically, the movie was shot in Santa Fe, Argentina, offering a look at a place not every day seen in cinema, but, even though its preference for long stagnant shots, e.g., palm trees, the swimming pool, and even the characters, etc., could be inferred as the visual expression of that tranquility coming to an end, they end up hindering the story to continue its course, rendering the pacing uneven because long, contemplative shots can last several minutes, but they risk their value by exhaustion.
The movie economy of revelation offers the possibility of discovering more about their backstory. Unearthed aspects of a traumatic event that marked them and changed their lives. An introspective exploration blooms for Virginia, who channels it in sustained silences, gazes, and habits that speak not only of her as a person but mainly about her relationship with Renata. Cappato and Suárez articulate different aspects of the inner psyche by way of symbolism. It is clear we don't have complete access to what truly happened, but it is also clear that we don't need to know in order to notice elements enacting what cannot be addressed directly. When the fumigator tells Virginia that, in order to get rid of the colony of ants in her house, the queen must be killed, it is difficult not to see the displacement of this idea as it articulates inner forces begging to be released. The swimming pool malfunction also resonates closely as dreams of drowning where death as an impossibility bear witness to traumas that hold someone captive. An impossibility of a symbolic death without previously exorcising oneself. Without previously uncovering the dead corpses of a traumatic past. La mujer hormiga conceptualizes distress as a tomb expedition where the skeletons are unhidden for us to see and face the consequences of that act. Battles that materialize in the physicality of one's body.
But the movie is not only about trauma, it is also about love. The love of a woman for her sister. And this is what the movie is also interested in portraying. Because maybe there is something special in the act of love when reason is not there to support it. Mojada by Vilma Palma, the song playing in the bar scene, reinforces this ambivalent aspect of love because, in the context of the story, aspects about the sister's upbringing can be deduced. And what can be deduced is beautifully expressed in a way that testifies to cinema as a medium for conveying images speaking volumes without extra words. Showing instead of telling.
