La Nana (2009) Reviews

• Good Housekeeping

  Michael Fargo2009-11-28

  Sebastián Silva concocts a film that would have tickled Freud…and Karl Marx too. Without much of a heavy hand, the perils of the class system create an unusual tension for modern American audiences. We see the "suffering" of a domestic worker, Raquel. But with the current controversy of Latin American domestic workers in the U.S. as well as North American movies audiences programmed to unhappy oddballs pulling out the automatic weapons to exact revenge expectations the film sets-up are not ever realized. This is a character study of a woman, played with convincing and unnerving power by Catalina Saavedra, who has no emotional life outside the family she serves. They don't abuse her, but they have no understanding of her deep attachment to them, and we enter the story as things begin to fray. Raquel is moody and has resorted to passive-aggressive behavior in dealing with the family. It's her birthday and she won't come into the party prepared for her because, she says, she's embarrassed. In fact, she's in control of everyone. It's a natural outcome of long-time maladjusted servitude where domestics are privy to the most intimate knowledge of family life, often knowing "secrets" about one family member that others don't know. But Raquel is near breaking because no one has ever considered her own emotional needs and unconsciously, she senses, "Life is short." Sensing the need for some kind of change, the mother decides to employ a second domestic to "help" Raquel, and the stage is set for high drama. Raquel takes offense that she's considered inadequate, but she too hasn't a clue as to what's ailing her. It takes several assistants before someone arrives and recognizes the needs that Raquel has been not only been deprived of, but also she's deprived herself. This second maid, Lucy, played with terrific abandon by Mariana Loyola is the key to the film. Lucy is everything the rest of characters aren't. She's fulfilled and happy. She knows herself and if something's lacking, she calls it out. What's surprising is the filmmaker trusts the characters and doesn't pander to the audience's need for farce or melodrama. A scene where a frustrated second maid is locked out of the house by Raquel and winds up climbing a trellis to reenter seems perfectly natural. And while the emotional "breakthoughs" that Raquel will or won't make are modest, and there's no overt revolution by the domestics here, the change in Raquel from the beginning of the film to the final scene is substantial and beautifully played by Saavedra. Whether American audiences can stick with the modest goals that Sebastián Silva sets up is questionable, but the charm he finds in such a bleak situation is rare and always enjoyable.

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• Live-in maid

  jotix1002009-09-01

  Welcome to Raquel's world. She is a maid for an upper middle class family in Santiago, Chile, that has been with them for twenty years of joyless existence. Raquel is a loner showing signs of fatigue as her work never stops. She is up and running the household for Pilar, who certainly appreciates her work, as witnessed at the beginning of the story when she gathers her clan to celebrate Raquel's birthday. Raquel gets along well with all the family members with the exception of the older daughter, who can't explain the animosity she gets from the maid. Part of the problem appears to be the way Raquel perceives the girl to be pretty and full of life, while hers is going away fast. Other than being with this family, she has no life of her own. Pilar decides to hire someone else to help Raquel with her demanding job. She is still going to be in charge, but that way, Pilar figures, it will give the maid some badly needed rest. Unfortunately, Raquel clashes with two of the prospective would-be-helpers, a young Peruvian girl, and an older woman, who tells Raquel not to love these people too much because they really don't appreciate what she does for the family. In both cases, Raquel ends up locking them out of the house and they get fed up. When Lucy, the third assistant, is hired, she proves to be a perfect foil to Raquel's objections. Lucy is a no-nonsense woman who really sees Raquel for what she; Lucy realizes that under the tough exterior, there is a good person waiting to emerge with the right kind of approach. Soon they end up striking a good working relationship and even traveling for the Christmas holidays to Lucy's parents home in the country. Sebastian Silva, co-wrote and directed this Chilean film that has proved to be a favorite in the festivals where it has been shown. The film works because Mr. Silva knows well the intricacies of life with a housekeeper, something that in other countries is a rarity. The director had worked with some of the actors in the cast in his first film "La vida me mata". He shoots the film using a lot of close ups that shows plainly the emotions going on with the characters he presents us. The best thing in the film is Catalina Saavedra, who as Raquel runs away with the picture. She is charismatic and even her mean spirited attitude toward the others can be explained in the way she measures herself against the rest of the family. Claudia Celedon has some good moments as Pilar, the lady of the house. Mariana Oyola is also effective as Lucy, the only one that really understood what the trouble was with Raquel. An enjoyable film thanks to Mr. Silva and Ms. Saavedra.

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• You'll Need a Spare Key

  Benjamin9992009-10-31

  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.

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• A dark subject we'd rather not talk about

  bioconscious20092009-11-27

  All I knew was that it was a story about a live-in housekeeper/nanny who did not look too happy in the poster image. I also knew that things are complicated when you have help in the household because I am from India where part-time and full-time help are as common as a common sparrow - you notice it only when it makes too much noise. In the very first scene, Raquel, the maid, looks up from her plate at the kitchen table: her perch, her cage, her refuge. She looks straight at the camera and the spectators find themselves being stared down. Raquel seemed to be saying, "you watch, I'll show you what I can do!" and, "welcome to my life, ever see it from this side?" and because she was in uniform, she seemed to be speaking for all maids all over the world, "it's not funny!" I loved that moment. It spoke volumes. After more than two decades of her most youthful years used up cleaning after the kids, cooking, serving, and staying out of the way yet available when needed, Raquel is spent. Her symptoms include bad headaches, spells of dizziness and a perpetual glowering, smoldering expression, passive-aggressive to say the least. The feverish camera movements are synchronized perfectly with Raquel's perspective and Silva's intentions: to make us appreciate her perspective, the ascent and descent of her everyday life. Rising every morning before everyone else, showering, preparing breakfast and snacks for the kids, sending them to school, serving coffee in bed to her masters, vacuuming, scrubbing, laundering, popping pills as she goes along, and then one day finally falling down the stairs in a fainting spell. It had to be that or I was sure she was going to kill someone. If looks could kill, hers surely would have. Driven by the fear (anger and hurt, really) of losing her "family" spot or being "replaced" by a younger more energetic type, Raquel had started showing signs of abnormal and anti-social behavior. When the decision to hire a new maid is finally announced, it is received as nothing less than a declaration of war. It's betrayal, blackball, and banishment, and since Raquel apparently has no where else to go, she fights for what she believes is hers alone. Locking the new maids out of the house, using liberal doses of sarcasm, hiding food from the kids, scrubbing bathtubs with Clorox each time the new maids shower in it… even getting rid of the new kitten who would seemed to be threatening to take her place in receiving whatever little love and affection she gets from the kids. Silva never lets us decide who is going to win. The first additional help hired is a young Peruvian girl who probably symbolizes the current reality in big cities such as Santiago where many Peruvians work as housemaids. Sarcasm directed at the new arrival highlights the intercultural tension present just below the surface of things: "So, you're obviously going to feed Peruvian fare to the family!" This continues for a while until, of course, the good-natured Lucy shows up, and, little by little, wins Raquel's friendship and heart, and provides the opportunity for a dignified exit to all concerned. Sebastián Silva managed to make me laugh about a dark subject by capturing the human elements out of a sea of depressing and gloomy facts: an unorganized, unaccounted for, underpaid, overworked, silent, oft-abused and more-oft simply ignored group of workers. The dark uniform with white collar and front plastic zipper is a great touch. It helps eliminate any tell-tale signs of the life and context of the donner and provides an even and nameless exterior soothing any guilt the employer might harbor. I kept shifting in my seat trying to get comfortable and realized later that perhaps my unease had to do with the fact that Silva reminded me about how socio-economic differences and race play themselves out in reality, about how people are most comfortable within the circle of their own class (when Lucy takes Raquel home to spend Christmas together), how class differences alienate and isolate, and how they are simply there, that's all there is to it. These days, most middle- class families that hire domestic help get part-time help to cook, clean, do laundry and dusting so that the masters can go to work and not have to worry about it all when they get home tired after a day's work. Many Westerners would be less able to relate to this film for lack of experience in this area. Many others would. For it's not just in countries like Chile and India that there is domestic help. We have it here in the US as well. Raquel, being a live- in maid, though, complicates matters a lot. A live-in maid suggests that she is working for a wealthier family who can afford to have someone provide a gentle wake-up call in the morning with coffee in bed. Raquel does not go home to a family (remember the heart- wrenching scene when she cries uncontrollably while talking to her mother we never see), she does not have a life of her own or hobbies to pursue during her time off, and she does not know how to (cannot) get herself out of it. While Raquel is considered "family" by her employers — Pilar certainly makes an effort to treat her with kindness and concern — the subtitle of the movie reads "she's more or less family." In that euphemism resides, in my humble opinion, the core of this dark comedy. After the film, as we were walking back to the parking garage on 2nd street, Katharine remarked (I paraphrase), "you know, I read somewhere that after the film was made, the director's real maid saw it and took off, deciding to get a (new) life!" For this 30-year old director the film has earned a lot of fame, and for his maids, it has earned freedom,

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• Successful portrait of a small piece of Chilean culture

  venm692009-08-16

  La nana Is a nice drama movie about the life and also the internal changes of a housekeeper in a wealthy sector of the capital of Chile, Santiago. It may be just a small history of a small piece of the Chilean culture, but definitely makes point in showing what, for us Chileans, is kind of a rare phenomenon: the way of having the housekeeper living in your own house, just like an individual member of your family. Normally, all the people here employs a maid but just for a some days a week, just to clean or cook, but there is also an large amount of wealthy families who employs these women (they always are) 24hr and 365 days the year. Anyway, is so special this "contract" that these workers become part of the family, and interact with the rest just like any brother, sister, aunt, or even parent. I think this relationship is perfectly showed in this movie and also adds something it may be common as well and is about the simplistic life of Raquel, because she really doesn't have any other thing to do besides her work. I recommend this movie also because is a very well directed one; the drama mixed with occasional comedy just do a good job carrying the whole history. It's very absorbent :)

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