The fish child

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Movie
German title The fish child
Original title El niño pez
Country of production Argentina
original language Spanish
Publishing year 2009
length 95 minutes
Rod
Director Lucía Puenzo
script Lucía Puenzo
production Fernando Sirianni
Miguel Morales
Claire Dornoy
music Andrés Goldstein
Daniel Tarrab
Laura Zisman
camera Rodrigo Pulpeiro
cut Hugo Primero
occupation

Das Fischkind (Original title: El niño pez ) is an Argentinian film drama from 2009 by the director Lucía Puenzo with Inés Efron and Mariela "Emme" Vitale in the leading roles.

action

Ailín, also known as “La Guayi”, has been a domestic servant for the wealthy family of a judge in Argentina for seven years. She fled her Paraguayan home village at the age of 13 . A love affair develops between Ailín and Lala, the daughter of the family, while Lala's father sexually abuses Ailín. Soon the girls plan to escape together. To do this, they steal a painting and several jewelry items from the family home, which they give to an underground trader called "the Basque" so that he can sell them to his shady contacts. With the money they want to buy a house near the lake in Ailín's home village. One day Lala surprises her father while having sex with Ailín. Ailín explains to Lala that she is tired and that she will leave the judge's house forever. Desperate, Lala decides to commit suicide. She is dissolving a drug in a glass of milk when her father walks into the kitchen and asks her to fill him a glass as well. Her father drinks the poisoned milk while Lala watches in silence.

Lala goes to Paraguay, where she meets Ailín's father, who is a well-known telenovela actor and singer in his country . While swimming in the lake, the strange fish child appears to her that Ailín had told her about. She learns from the newspaper that Ailín has been arrested on suspicion of murdering Lala's father. She also learns the reason Ailín fled her village: she was pregnant by her own father. Knowing this, Lala returns to Argentina. Lala visits Ailín in the juvenile detention center. Lala tells her that she wants to face the police, but Ailín replies that she will continue to blame herself even then. She is also convinced that, as a poor girl, the police are more likely to see her as a murderer than is the case with Lala from the upper class.

In retrospect, Lala recapitulates a detail of the conversation with Ailín. She had said that she had seen the painting that was sold and wondered how that could be possible. Lala asks the Basque who he sold the picture to. He tells her that he sold it to a corrupt inspector for whom he trained attack dogs. Lala learns that Ailín is being forced into prostitution through the commissioner. That same evening Lala goes to the superintendent with the Basque and they free Ailín after an exchange of fire with the help of the dogs. Ailín Lala later tells the entire story of the fish child and how she threw her dying child into the water so that it could be protected by the deity of the lake. Eventually they both flee to Paraguay together.

criticism

Sylvie Pommerenke praised the film on kino-zeit.de for its distance from the director's book. The film became interesting because of completely different aspects. "The fish child impresses with this episodic narrative style, with the leaden heaviness that is contrasted with beautiful images and especially with the acting performance of Inés Efrón in the role of Lala."

Awards

  • 2009: Premio Especial del Jurado (Special Jury Prize) at the Festival de Málaga in Spain

literature

  • Lucía Puenzo: The fish child . Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8031-3220-8 (Original title: El niño pez . Translated by Rike Bolte).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sylvie Pommerenke: The fish child. In: kino-zeit.de. Retrieved March 10, 2011 .
  2. ↑ 12ª EDICIÓN MÁLAGA 2009. (PDF; 41.9 KB) Accessed March 10, 2011 .