User Reviews

Life has not been kind to Luisa. As we meet her, we are taken to follow her daily routine, something she has done for more than thirty years. She is a woman of a certain age who dresses in a severe style, as befitting her job at a Buenos Aires cemetery. After leaving her immaculate apartment in order, feeding her precious cat, Tino, Luisa takes the bus to her work at the office of the cemetery.

A surprise awaits Luisa. Her boss has decided he needs a new look for the place. Luisa is told she will receive what is due to her for being forced out. Luisa also has a second job; she is the housekeeper of an aging theater star, who has decided quitting show business after a long career, thus rendering Luisa unemployed for the second time in the same day.

Luisa figures she can survive with what she will receive from being terminated at the cemetery, but alas, to her surprise it is only a meager amount. Things begin to go downhill for Luisa. The biggest blow she gets is the sudden death of her beloved cat Tino. Finding a place that would cremate the animal will set her back some 300 pesos, which she does not have. Resorting to being practical, Luisa wraps Tino in plastic and stores it in her small freezer.

One day, Luisa discovers the Buenos Aires underground. The metro is the fastest way to get anywhere, but Luisa, being an old timer, likes the more relaxing buses to travel. The new medium is chaotic, at best. On her way to a public office, she is assaulted by all kinds of people that have taken to ply their merchandise, or beg in the crowded metro. She is appalled as she listens to beggars exploiting their diseases, mostly made up.

As things begin to get desperate, Luisa decides to join the metro crowds of con artists if she wants to give Tino a decent burial. For all appearances, Luisa is still working, something she wants Jose, the nosy super, to believe she goes to work every day. Luisa realize her technique is not producing any material reward, something that changes when she decides to try to pass as a woman who needs crutches to move. She even finds a spot where she saw an older man sit near the train platform, deciding to claim it for herself.

Horacio, the man in question, is missing a leg. He has been a professional beggar for quite some time. At first, Luisa clashes with Horacio. He does not need another person around taking over his territory. Luisa decides to change appearances and becomes a blind beggar, with more success. As her electric power is cut, she realizes her cat will not keep its frozen state, so she decides to ask Jose, the super to keep it for her.

Throughout the story, we are given flashbacks of Luisa standing in front of a pastry shop with a young girl and a man. We suspect they are Luisa's family, now buried at the cemetery. Jose, in spite of not being one of Luisa's favorite people, comes through when he realizes the state in which the older woman is living, paying her bill, but not before discovering what the package in his freezer contains!

"Luisa" an Argentine film directed by Gonzalo Calzada explores an aspect of human desperation typical of the times we are living. Written by Rocio Azuaga, this is a touching story of a woman with no means of support except her two jobs she suddenly loses. She is a lonely woman who evidently lived through the deaths of her family, something that has made her live on the edge, shunning human contact and living in her own world. Without friends, not being savvy about the ways to survive in a city that turns hostile toward people like her, she resorts to imitate the dispossessed if she wants to make it.

The great Leonor Manso gives a sensitive performance as Luisa, the woman that has to face reality without the help of anyone. Ms. Manso is quite credible in her transformation from the austere woman into the beggar she becomes in order to subsist. Jean-Pierre Regerraz does a fine job as Horacio, the only person that comes to give good advice to the lady in need. Marcelo Serre is seen as the busybody super.