[Film Review] The Maid (2009) and Rotting in the Sun (2023)

Chilean queer filmmaker Sebastián Silva's artistic output cannot be contained in mere one form, who is also legitimately a painter and a musician. Even in his films, often he is a triple threat of director, screenwriter and actor.

THE MAID is his second feature, a Sundance hit which brings him international recognition plus a Golden Globe nomination. In a Chilean upper middle class household, Raquel (Saavedra) is the trusting housemaid who has been employed for over 20 years. The film commences with her 41-year-old birthday keyed up for the celebration, her anticipation is somewhat dampened when it turns out to be commonplace, she dismisses the gift from the matriarch Pilar Valdes (Celedón), a recycled sweater.

Raquel suffers from inexplicable headaches and faint spells, which prompts the family to hire an extra maid to help her with the chores, which is against her will. She antagonizes the new ones with a frigid harshness, and her go-to antics is to lock them outside the house door and pretend not to hear them, a trick proves successful to force them resign, although the second time with a termagant Sonia (Reeves) ends up in quite a scuffle.

Audience can comprehend Raquel's territorial mindset, she firmly considers herself as a veritable member of the family, she has the privilege to pick favorite among the family's four kids. Her favorite is Lucas (Agustín Silva, Sebastián's younger brother in real life), and she doesn't see eye to eye with Camila (García-Huidobro, Celedón's daughter in real life), the eldest daughter, which is tolerated by Pilar, much to Camila's chagrin. Actually, Pilar, not relinquishing the formal address from Raquel, is very tactful in maintaining the fine balance between indulgence and reproof. She never threats Raquel with a kiss-off and keeps a wary eye on her, checking her room when she is out, and when Raquel is smite by another faint spell, the family's concern and assistance is in earnest.

The pernicious symptom of perennial servitude is that the Valdes family becomes the whole universe for Raquel, and only courtesy to Lucy (Loyola), another new maid (third time is the charm), whose capacity of empathy and ebullient spirit finally thaw Raquel's hardened defense, and show her that there are other things in life to embrace, to experience other than taking care of the Valdes family. The film winds up in a life-affirming note after another birthday and valediction, for the first time, Raquel tries to do something new, breathe in some fresh air and leave the house behind.

Shot almost entirely in the family's dwelling with medium shots and close-ups, Silva choreographs a cohesive, dynamic, organic household dramedy with an acutely felt emotional undercurrent, and Saavedra's central performance is a revelation to behold. Raquel's obduracy is a blunt instrument, her defense mechanism towards extraneous invasion. When sparks flicker in her eyes, you can sense that something is awakened in her lonesome heart, THE MAID is full of mischief and sympathy and Silva is quite a natural to the cinematic syntax and language.

14 years later, Saavedra also stars in Silva's 9th feature ROTTING IN THE SUN, where misdemeanor in THE MAIDE aggravates into a death-dealing accident. Silva plays a version of himself, a ketamine-addicted artist and filmmaker in Mexico who is gripped by depression and suicidal ideation, and Saavedra is her concerned housekeeper Veronica.

During an excursion in a gay naked beach (unsimulated sex and genitals galore), Sebastián is almost drown to save Jordan Firstman (who also plays a version of himself), a popular USA social media influencer and comedian, who, in turn, develops a kind of limerence of him, and whose unoriginal métier Sebastián deprecates publicly. Brushing aside Jordan's invitation to develop a TV series together, then thinking better of it after some HBO executives show interest in the pitch, Sebastián contacts Jordan and the latter invites himself to stay in, under the pretense of brainstorming their project together.

That doesn't happen, Sebastián drops dead in a freaky accident witnessed by Veronica (the scene is shot and edited with imperceptible deception that evinces Silva's growing dexterity as a director), who in a panic, doesn't call the police and later tries to conceal the body. After Jordan arrives and convinces that he is ghosted by Sebastián, the plot sets Jordan against a suspect Veronica, with a translation app as their communication mediator, in the affair of Sebastián's weird disappearance. Mateo (Riestra), Sebastián's best friend and landlord, Veronica's employer, believes Sebastián has actually carried out his suicide plan, has his own design on erasing some implicating messages on Sebastián's phone. Since audience is in the know of the accident, it is comical to watch characters tied up in a knot and realize the differences of one's departure weighing on other lives, Jordan even questions his own life's vapidity and imitative unworthiness.

Spurred by a frenetic energy, the camerawork is constantly on the move, but not haphazard, and Saavedra delivers another compelling performance (albeit is similar to THE MAID) with varying shades of apprehension, state of shock and anguish. ROTTING IN THE SUN is a meta mockery on Silva's own career trajectory, a tongue-in-cheek satire on existential crisis, the caprice of fate, social media frenzy and pleasure-seeking zeitgeist, together with Silva's uncompromising stance to "épater la prude", a far-out, in-the-moment eye-opener conceptualized out of Silva's uniquely transgressive afflatus.

referential entries: Silva's NASTY BABY (2015, 6.5/10); Alejandra Márquez Abella's THE GOOD GIRLS (2018, 6.8/10); Pablo Larraín's EMA (2019, 7.4/10); Alain Guiraudie's STRANGER BY THE LAKE (2013, 8.4/10).

English Title: The Maid

Original Title: La Nana

Year: 2009

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Country: Chile, Mexico

Language: Spanish

Director: Sebastián Silva

Screenwriters: Sebastián Silva, Pedro Peirano

Cinematography: Sergio Armstrong

Editor: Danielle Filliois

Cast:

Catalina Saaverdra

Claudia Celedón

Mariana Loyola

Andrea García-Huidobro

Alejandro Goic

Agustín Silva

Anita Reeves

Mercedes Villanueva

Delfina Guzmán

Luis Dubó

Juan Pablo Larenas

Rating: 7.1/10

Title: Rotting in the Sun

Year: 2023

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Thriller

Country: USA, Mexico

Language: Spanish, English

Director: Sebastián Silva

Screenwriters: Sebastián Silva, Pedro Peirano

Music: Nascuy Linares

Cinematography: Gabriel Díaz

Editors: Santiago Cendejas, Gabriel Díaz, Sofía Subercaseaux

Cast:

Jordan Firstman

Catalina Saavedra

Sebastián Silva

Mateo Riestra

Martine Gutierrez

Anajo Aldrete

Gustavo Melgarejo

Juan Andrés Silva

Gerardo Sierra

Kerry Ardra

Rob Keller

Rating: 7.4/10