La Rabia

La Rabia
La Rabia
Argentina 2008

directed by
Albertina Carri

screenplay
Albertina Carri

cinematography
Sol Lopatin

music
Gustavo Senmartin

sound
Rufino Basavilbaso

editing
Alejo Moguillansky

cast
Analia Couceyro, Javier Lorenzo, Victor Hugo Carrizo, Nazarena Duarte, Gonzalo Perez

producer
Pablo Trapero, Albertina Carri
production
Matanza Cine Medrano 1314 1179 Buenos Aires, Argentina T 11 48 61 40 06 E info@matanzacine.com.ar

world sales
Bavaria Film International
Bavaria Media GmbH
Bavariafilmplatz 8
D-82031 Geiselgasteig
T +49-89-6499-2686
F +49-89-6499-3720
E international@bavaria-film.de

format
35 mm, barvni/colour

running time
83'

Life in the Argentine Pampas, on the remote farms of the already out-of-the-way town of La Rabia, is severe and harsh, implied already in the opening credits by the notification that all the animals in the film live and die as they would have naturally. In their unhappy marriage, Alejandra and Poldo are raising their mute daughter Nati, who, when excited, takes off her clothes or screams, co-creating a discontinued but intense sound-scape. The girl expresses herself through drawing, which the director skilfully uses to introduce animated sequences done in watercolour and ink technique (Manuel Barenboim). Nati's only company is the neighbouring boy Ladeado, whose father Pichon practices rough, almost S&M sex with her mother. In an environment in which adults are unable to communicate in a constructive manner, the muteness of a girl, who, living in a patriarchal society, is only be allowed to listen and obey anyway, is even more striking. Even shots of the landscape taken during the most magical hours of dawn and dusk do not manage to do away with the feelings of misfortune and sadness accompanying the growing up of these two children of enraged (rabia meaning rage) fathers.

»Sometimes I find the opportunity to gaze on the curvature of the earth, this happens when I travel in the open country. Whenever I see that far-off line, I feel inexplicable relief and intrigue. Occasionally pornography offers a similar attraction to that which I feel from this infinite curve, which is so inaccessible. The angst of the impenetrable is what I like in porn; its failure point, the impossibility of representing intimacy, the subjective depth of desire. And the beauty of death is what moves me in the infinite and carnal landscape of the open plains.

La Rabia deals with the mystery that, I believe, is hidden in sexuality and in the open plains. This is the scheme of death, and the minor death that comes with sex, imagined by a little girl who cannot speak, who has a language that is too disturbing for a world that insists on calling itself normal.« (Albertina Carri)

Albertina Carri was born in 1973 in Buenos Aires. She is a director, scriptwriter and actress, exploring and working in various genres. With her work, she is laying the groundwork for the concept of New Argentine Film. In the forefront of her films (No quiero volver a casa, 2001; Géminis, 2005) is the family, in the autobiographical socio-political documentary Los Rubios (2003) the family is her own. She has also made two animated films, the short Aurora (2001), and the pornographic melodrama Barbie, tambien puede estar triste (2003).