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Published: 26 August 2010
by DAN CARRIER

THERE is a Joan Rivers joke in which she says the thing she hates most about the washing-up is once you’ve done it, six months later you have to do it all over again. 

It sprang to mind as I watched this bizarre and wonderful film about a maid with a serious cleaning OCD, who is clinging, loyal to the family who have employed her for 20 years, and is finding the maturing children she has nurtured an unbearable test of her patience. 

Set in a well-heeled household in Chile, it  tells the story of a maid who has given two decades of service – but is seriously insecure as ill-health and age begin to take its toll on her ability to keep the house ship-shape. Add to that the tensions within the family, and you have a claustrophobic base for a fascinating study of family life to play out.

The tone is set from the off: the family organise a little birthday surprise for Raquel (Catalina Saavedra) but there is something amiss. She seems depressed, unsure, angry – and you begin to learn why as the viewer is offered a ringside seat to the daily lives of the people she is picking up clothes and washing dishes for. 

Her grim-faced performance, akin to a widow in mourning with the added effect of her austere black maid outfits, lies heavily across the film. Actor Catalina Saavedra is a wonderful turn, filling you with both empathy for her ­situation and anger at her inability to see how much worse she is ­making things for herself by her behaviour.

Everything adds to the sense of the drudgery she has to face each day: there is no soundtrack until the very final scene. Instead, the atmosphere is created by background noise caused by sheets being straightened as beds are made, dishes washed, floors swept and polished. It’s a neat trick to take the viewer into this depressing world of servitude.

And her position in the household, while cemented by her loyalty, is underlined by the way she is summoned: a bell is rung, or an intercom used. While very much part of the family’s lives, she is still clearly an employee.

We learn Raquel is at war with the oldest daughter, who we are told she has brought up like her own daughter. But the pair go out of their way to antagonise one another, and Raquel’s increasingly eccentric behaviour is noticed by the lady of the house, Pilar, who is torn by her responsib­ility to her miserable employee, and the fact she is clearly not doing her job the way she should be.

When the family bring in another maid to help, Raquel turns particularly frosty and cold, and does all she can to ensure the apparent usurper does not stay long. 

This is acutely observed family politics, and is uncomfortable for that – we feel we are trespassing at the dinner table. 

Perhaps the part of the secret of why this film is so well observed stems partly from the fact director Sebastian Silva shot it in his parents’ home where he grew up – and even cast his little brother Agustin in the role of Lucas, the oldest boy in the family and Raquel’s favoured ­member. 

Simply super weird at times, quirky throughout, this film is splendidly acted and a ­fulfilling experience all round. It’s like nothing I have seen before.