La novia del desierto (2017)

Directed by: Cecilia Atan, Valeria Pivato | 78 minutes | drama | Actors: Paulina Garcia, Claudio Rissic

Teresa has been employed for more than thirty years as an empleada en nana or domestic help and nanny with the Cid family, living in an old large beautiful house in Buenos Aires. When the family decides to sell the house, they just as easily thank Teresa for her faithful service. The ground falls from under her feet. This was it.

After the move is a fact, the Cid family helps Teresa find a place with a family of friends that is looking for reliable help. A small detail is that the new workplace is located more than a thousand kilometers away, in northwestern San Juan. On the way there, the bus Teresa is traveling with breaks down and she is stranded in Vallecito, a small pilgrimage site along the highway, in the desert of northern Argentina. Travelers come to Vallecito to place flowers or a bottle of water in front of the holy ‘la difunta Correa’.

While we, as viewers, are stranded in the desert at the same time as Teresa, and are just as lost as she is, we see Teresa’s last days as a loyal help to the family she has cared for all these years in alternating scenes. Teresa – we later discover that she was orphaned early on – joined the family as a young girl, who were looking for a nana for their newborn son. As (less and less) usual in Latin America, Teresa lived indoors and, in addition to being a cleaner, cook and personal help for the parents, also acted as a surrogate mother for the son, whom she raised more or less like her own child. We mainly see the tip of the veil of this history in ‘La novia del desierto’, but it is crucial to understand Teresa and her place in society. The subtle but emotional farewell to her ‘son’ is gripping.

In Vallecito, Teresa meets the verbose and robust market trader Miguel ‘el gringo’ (a charming Claudio Rissi). When she wanders around the market, he persuades her to try on something, whereupon Teresa leaves her bag with all her belongings in his camper. When she returns in a panic the next day, the bag is not there and they search together, on a trip through the desert, passing different addresses where Miguel thinks he can find the bag. As befits a road movie, Teresa is at first hesitant and averse to this new adventure that she must undergo, but the jovial and disarming Miguel gradually thaws her. Being on the road acts as a catalyst for her personal development. The new workplace disappears more and more into the background and wallflower Teresa discovers that despite years of being ignored, she does have feelings.

We know lead actress Paulina García from ‘Gloria’, the Chilean art house hit from 2013 about a middle-aged woman who tries to pick up her love life again. In ‘La novia del desierto’ she cannot be recognized again: from a self-confident, elegant and sensual woman in ‘Gloria’ she has changed into a gray mouse, an insecure girl in her fifties. García and the directors Cecilia Atán and Valeria Pivato do not make Teresa a woman to be pitied, but give her the best of cautious happiness. And that can be in this film of small gestures in a new pair of shoes, that extra glass of wine or even a hair clip that is straightened with sweet precision.

The modest film (in length and in action) ‘La novia del desierto’ is the feature film debut of the Argentine director duo and was selected for Un Certain Regard in Cannes. Much is not explained or explored in depth, but the beautiful images are impressive. According to the directors, the setting in the vast no man’s land around Vallecito refers to the indefinable position of women like Teresa. A lifetime of caring for a family that isn’t yours and then ending up empty-handed. And it is precisely the emptiness of the landscape, of the moment, that suddenly turns out to be Teresa’s last chance at happiness.