La otra piel

Drama about a man who is supposed to kill his daughter.

Renee returns home one Saturday after giving an early morning piano lesson. She lives in the provinces with her husband Juan and their five year-old son Santi. Over breakfast, they discuss a possible move to Buenos Aires but rule it out after Juan provides a reasoned argument against it. He suggests a family trip to the beach. Renee proposes for Juan alone to take Santi to the beach while she takes her ailing mother Virginia to the country. The film bifurcates as the narrative alternates between the two excursions. Renee picks up Virginia at an assisted-living facility; they drive to a rustic cabin, sit by the fireplace and later take a walk in the forest. Juan and the inquisitive Santi travel further, to an almost empty beach, walk down a pier, build a castle out of sand, and meet two fishermen who entertain the boy with sea tales and teach him how to gut a fish.

A young man, on his way to a factory to assess its efficiency, causes a car crash. The factory owner, who ran the business with his wife and her brother, has been killed in an accident, though whether it’s the same accident is left unclear. The film explores the unforeseeable ramifications of the twin tragedies.

Brisa’s daily life alternates between the world of show business, appearances, and the stark reality presented by his son Hilario, who fell into poverty as a result of his addiction to drugs. The film portrays an intense fragment of Susana and Hilario’s story, the difficulties that arise when she tries to keep her professional commitments, the elegance with which she manages to avoid the low blows and her pain; but, fundamentally, the film reveals how this woman faces a difficult process without losing her dignity or sense of humor.

Are words, photographs and speeches sufficient means for describing and communicating a complex, harsh, unmanageable reality? These unsolved questions pursue Cassandra during her trip through the impenetrable Chaco as chronicler of a means of communication, her first job after graduating from literature school. The unknown reality of native peoples who live in the Chaco communities, their beautiful and uncomprehensive languages and their dilemmas facing an economy which excludes them, are part of a trip in which Cassandra finds an inhabitable world within her status as foreigner. Her visions start merging with the cosmovision of ancient inhabitants until she becomes part of the enigma herself.