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.
