Chichester Cinema at New Park
The Maid
- La Nana
A microcosm of Latin social hierarchy while also focusing on one woman's journey to free herself from a mental servitude of her own making.
An obsessively diligent, emotionally remote domestic causes all sorts of trouble for herself and the family she works for in Chilean director Sebastian Silva’s taut second feature. A tense, engrossing character study with a sometimes boldly repellent performance by Catalina Saavedra in the title role. ‘The Maid’ was acclaimed at Sundance, winning the World Cinema grand jury prize and an acting award for Saavedra in 2009, and also a Golden Globe nomination.
Expertly dissecting the tensions enveloping the members of a comfortably middle-class Latin American clan and their live-in maid of 23 years, it is also a tough, nuanced and finally compassionate portrait of an individual who thwarts compassion more often than not. Director Silva skilfully raises the film’s emotional temperature in sequences, which churn with passive-aggressive comedy, impeccably observed detail and brutal violence, both emotional and physical.
Saavedra is riveting as a servant whose unblinking focus on her routine masks a profound loneliness, and the entire ensemble is note-perfect. ‘The Maid’ is a microcosm of Latin social hierarchy while also focusing on one woman's journey to free herself from a mental servitude of her own making. (Subtitles)
Chile · 2009 · Sebastian Silva · 96min
