The Maid

The Maid (2009)

In some ways this film is extraordinary. It's small, limited in its setting, and it has a slightly predictable inevitability. But it is so seeringly well acted and filmed with an honest small budget honesty, it's hard not to appreciate. It also deals with a huge issue in many countries--the use of household help, often now from other, poorer countries, and the ironies and sadness that goes with this class structure.

Catalina Saavedra is "the maid" in this, and like the leading role in the even more astonishing "The Hedgehog" we get inside this person's modest and seemingly invisible persona to really get them, or part of them, for a brief spell. It's moving--it made me cry--and revealing. It's not like we don't know that live-in maids lead an unfair, often unhappy life (which they disguise from their employers). But we aren't often faced with it so plainly.

This also is revealing about the standard of living in Chile, which is one of the two or three South American countries fully above the "third world" status you might think at first. The fact it did so well in the United States (earning half a million dollars) is not because it was a glimpse of a foreign impoverished country, but because it resembled so well the situation in American households. Those with maids.

See this? Yes, certainly. It has a simple cinema-verite style, not quite home movies but shot almost entirely inside the house in a shaky camera. The plot might not be enough for some viewers--after awhile it is what it is without a lot of complications. Or at least not complications we haven't seen before. What carries it is the sincerity of the performances, especially Saavedra's.

I just saw this at the Sydney Film Festival and enjoyed it very much. An up close and personal drama with nice comic moments about a live in housekeeper who works for wealthy family in Santiago. Catalina Saavedra in the lead role delivers a very strong performance as the shy and emotionally distant maid who literally doesn't have a life besides her role within the house.

There are some really fine scenes throughout this film as we slowly get to know the family and obviously Raquel the maid. I liked the fact that the family did not treat her like dirt and knew her value to the household.

A small character driven film with a warm heart and realistic touches. It was also nice to see the Director and Lead Actress (Sebastian Silva and Catalina Saavedra) live after the screening for Q & A's with the appreciative audience.

She's going a bit crazy. The house is her turf; and she knows how to take advantage of it. She will lock you out if she can, so pocket a spare key. Raquel! Let me in!

An amusing study of human territoriality and the limitations of one's ability to control what is thought as a possessed environment, the film explores irrational behaviors that can be remedied by tenderness and patience.

This Chilean film is among the best foreign origin films of the year. Sad, funny, charming and unpredictable. Nice job, Sebastian Silva. Catalina Saaverda is brilliant as the somewhat disturbed maid, Raquel. The film offers us just a glimpse at Chile; which looks like a nice place.

As a child growing up with a parent in the Domestic Service Industry, this movie was very touching and comical at the same time. So much of what happens when the family is not around and the house staff dynamics are well portrayed here. The difference is the cultural nuances that made this film so great. Some of subjects areas caught on film would never really be seen in North America Cinema.

The family dynamics portrayed in the film is also very interesting. The movie has some documentary style camera angles but it is very much a look in at one persons life.

I recommend this movie.

The Maid, or La Nana is a Chilean film that is hard to categorize. Raquel has served an upper class Chilean family for over twenty years, and when she becomes overwhelmed by the demands of the household, they hire another woman to help with the chores. Through a sequence of different pranks, which includes locking the helper out of the house, the assistant quits. It turns out that Raquel is territorial, and possessive of her employers.

The next prospect, an older, tougher woman is more difficult to intimidate, but the maid in charge manages to also make life unbearable for her and she gives up and leaves. Raquel believes that she is part of the family because of her many years of living with them and they, in turn, feel obligated to to take care of her.

The lead actress, Catalina Saavedra, is a plump, plain looking woman who will alternately make you feel sorry for her at one moment and then want someone to do the right thing and lock up this mentally unstable creature. She is outstanding and had me convinced that she is really nuts.

Both funny and sad, The Maid is an excellent movie.