If Merchant/Ivory’s Howard’s End
is a perfect metaphor for bristling class tensions in just before the Great
War (1910) Britain, perhaps Chilean director/writer Sebastian Silva’s (with
Pedro Peirano) domestic farce about a posh Santiago family’s fumbling for a new
way to view a cherished but misunderstood domestic servant is a lens for
viewing a post-Pinochet Chile.
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The Maid opens on an awkward
birthday party as family members – mom, dad, nearly grown daughter, horny,
mischievous teen son and grade school age twin boys – try to lure their cranky,
aging maid, Raquel (Catalina Saavedra) into the dining room for cake and
presents. At forty-two Raquel – who keeps only a tenuous line open to her
bio-clan -- has devoted her adult life to serving the Valdes family, for whom
she is an oddly vexing, comforting presence, neither kin nor entirely employee.
To daughter, Camila (Andrea Garcia-Huidobro), Raquel is a grouchy obstacle
between her and her professor mom, Pilar (Claudia Celedon); for the perpetually
randy Lucas (Agustin Silva) Raquel is a treasured connection to childhood, a
sort of pal and an icon of impending adult conquests. Raquel feels closest to
the boy, whose cum stained sheets and pajamas she constantly refreshes.
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Prompted by Raquel’s fainting
spells, Pilar hires a young Peruvian girl to share the chores. Raquel responds
with a vicious cold war against the girl who flees in terror, only to be
replaced by an even older retainer.
As the battle escalates and draws
blood it appears that The Maid will venture into the dark territory, of
say American misanthrope Todd Solondz, and they’ll be a body count. But then a
younger woman, Lucy (Mariana Loyola) appears and the entire tale pivots around
the fantastical notion that Raquel may actually get a life.
Told with a refreshing, non
Puritanical sexual candor – there is non gratuitous adult male and female
frontal nudity plus horny boy masturbation – The Maid examines a wealthy
Chilean family as both buttress against change and unlikely incubator for new
social and political mores. Rooted in the director’s childhood memories of a
national institution (there are reportedly 250,000 Chilean maids) with strong
ensemble performances: especially Catalina Saavedra’s awesome if glacial
transformation, The Maid is a rich, humane dramedy that confounds one’s
expectations in the most delicious way.