The Fish Child(2009)
“The Fish Child”(2009, original El niño pez) is a story of class, race, sexuality and love. The second film of Lucia Puenzo is an adaptation of her novel of the same title.
Even though the two works of art describe the same events, each does it in radically different way. The novel is written from the perspective of the beloved dog of the main character - Serafin. His point of view and limited perception of the world brings an element of joy and comedy to the very dense and difficult situations the girls have to face. The movie, on the other hand, maintains very serious and dark character seasoned with lots of tension and a constant feeling of danger. Lucia Puenzo created a film that balances on the border of melodrama, thriller and fantasy.
The plot of “The Fish Child” is presented non-linearly. The director confuses the viewer and gently erases the border between today and three years ago by joining many distant-in-time scenes. Due to the heavy use of flashbacks certain elements of the plot and characters’ intentions remain unclear.
One of the main characters, Lala (Inés Efron), comes from a very influent Buenos Aires-based white family. When we meet her for the first time she is a typical child: naive, loyal, curious about the world. As she falls in love with an indigenous maid, who has been growing up with her, she becomes mature and escapes the norms of her high class family. Throughout the movie she becomes the character that changes the most. Dynamic and tragic sequence of events such as discovering her father’s cruelty and later killing him, being rejected by her love, finding out her partner’s past and finally running away influence her the most. She evolves from being a feminine child living in the comfort of her family’s mansion into short-haired strong character that dictates her own morals.
Ailin (Mariela Vitale)on the other hard appears to be a static, experienced individual. We gradually discover her terrific past, sequence of abuse and her deepest secret related to the title of the movie. She appears to lost her hope in gaining respect over her body. After many years of sexual exploitation she seems to be scared to say ‘no’ and, as we get to know, has been engaged in many promiscuous relationships over the course of her life. Although she starts off being an adult, at the end of the movie her character remains static and Lala receives the role of the mature, responsible partner.
I enjoyed the extraordinary way of portraying the love of Lala and Ailin. Lucia Puenzo did everything to layer meaning on a difficult and to this day discriminated type of relationships. The only fault that became uncomfortable for me is that even though the racial and unequal class status of Ailin was described in details (and criticized), the life of Lala’s family was presented as better without sufficient critique. Puenzo raises questions towards pathological relations of Lala’s family but doesn’t discuss the faults of the bourgeois class. It seems as the director begins her critique in the portrayal of corrupted institutions that in their definition are supposed to protect the rich from the poor (police which organizes a private brothel and the judge-rapist) but doesn’t evaluate her political views completely.
If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it. Probably for one of the coming snow days (thank you Netflix)