At the weekend our local cinema ran a short season of Argentinean films. We managed to get to a couple of them.
La Cámara Oscura (The Camera Obscura -2009) is a film by Maria Victoria Menis based on a short story by Argentinean writer Angélica Gorodischer, set in the last 18th and early 19th century ago among Jewish immigrants escaping the pogroms in Europe.
Gertrudis, the principal character, is a woman who has almost disappeared from her own life. Largely unspeaking, her inner life is conveyed to us in animated sequences, and by reflection in her appreciation of the beauty of the countryside, her flower garden, her daughters’ dresses, the food she prepares, and her table settings. Her son only realizes she is gone because the table from the night before has not been cleared.