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Since the death of their parents, teenaged Juana (Malena Filmus) and
Mara (Lola Abraldes) have been raised by their aunt Inés (Umbra Colombo),
who rules them with an iron grip and lets them work at her beehives, as
producing honey is her sole source of income - also to make up for her own
sexual frustrations, brought on by an unfulfilling affair with a married
man (Giovanni Ciccia). The girls though don't mind much, as long as they
have one another. And then Inés' nephew and the girls cousin Lucio
(Franco Rizzaro), and he's about the girls' age, fairly good-looking, and
he sure strikes a chord with both Juana and Mara, both in the age of their
sexual awakening. Mara, the younger of the two, has the edge in this, as
her mix of innocence, naivité and seductiveness makes it impossible to
resist for Lucio, himself as much lacking in experience as the girls. So
eventually he and Mara end up having sex - much to the dismay of Juana, as
not only has she been beaten to the pie by Mara, she also fears to lose
her sister and best friend to some random guy - and thus she tries to
mobilize auntie Inés against the relationship of the two ... and with
some success, too, but in all, auntie's just too caught up in her own
frustrations to be of much help. So eventually, Juana sees herself forced
to take matters into her own hands - with disastrous results ... A
very impressive and compelling film, and one that works quite so well
because it combines traditional drama and thriller elements, and realism
and allegory, and manages to create erotic tension without actually
showing anything, and trusts its audience to read between the lines. Now
this is achieved by a clever script, a directorial effort heavy on basic
tension and atmosphere, but still subtle enough to not suffocate story or
cast, and on top of that a strong ensemble makes this a pretty awesome if
somewhat (intentionally) disturbing watch.
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