"Aside"
Narrative Summary
A film about the lives of young people, cultural outcasts of
the so-called "knowledge society", more than merely
economic or social outcasts. The director never intervenes
with direct questions, nor is there a spoken voice-over. All
action is live and seen, rather than explained. The author
intervenes only with his social and esthetic viewpoint;
always completely alone with the real characters involved.
The difficulties of finding a job and scraping together some
money, the temptations of crime and its harsh consequences,
the lack of culture and knowledge of the basics of life, are
all intertwined in parallel lives.
This is also a story of confused people, who do not have a
future, and do not understand how they are integrated into or
"dis-integrated" from society.
Carina, Neno and Milka are our heroes. They live in the
slums.
Carina, mulatto, Neno’s sister, 21, has recently become
a prostitute, following in the footsteps of their mother. She
has a child, 3. The child’s father abandoned her. She
dances very well, she is a small star (a “vedette”)
in Carnival, but in the end, she is completely confused,
surrounded by crime, the death of her imprisoned older
brother with AIDS, and what she thinks is her real love, an
imprisoned man who writes her poems and love letters. We see
her dancing, walking the streets in search of clients,
playing football with other women, visiting her brother at
detention centers, and in the end, falling apart at
Handler’s home, remembering bitterly her brother’s
death, her unwanted work in prostitution, and trying to
convince herself she has finally found love.
She goes, together with her mother, Neno, and Pablo, to see
the Uruguayan film EN LA PUTA VIDA (A WHORE’S LIFE),
which upsets them to the point of tears.
A boyfriend of hers films her (with a low quality camera that
I gave them) as she undresses, focussing the camera on her
naked derriere.
At her older brother’s funeral, everybody in the family
is very sad, Carina the most. The burial takes place at a
very humble site in the public cemetery.
Neno, Carina’s brother, 17, mulatto, is a small thief
who is in and out of juvenile detention centers. He smokes
many joints a day, sometimes he gets high on cocaine, but
mostly, he does nothing, just has fun with his pals from the
slums. He learns from, before being caught by the law, the
life of thieves, and what life is going to be like in jail.
He plays Uruguayan African drums rather well. When he is in
jail, he self-inflicts cuts in his arms, justified by his
depression, his need for attention, and also to share a
symbolic destruction with his new companions in prison.
Neno is beaten by the police and goes to a public hospital,
where red tape stands in his way. In the end, he does not
receive proper medical treatment.
In the beginning, at Neno’s birthday, we see Carina and
Neno surrounded by friends and family, dancing, playing
drums, and substituting the Happy Birthday song with drums
playing.
Neno and other squatters invade some municipal lands in order
to build a shack of their own, but later on, we learn that
the police evict them.
Cross-examined by a judge, Neno lies and denies without
success that he had nothing to do with the stealing of a
bicycle. He ends up in jail, once again.
Milka, white, of German origin, 17, is a single mother, with
a one-year-old daughter; her former boy friend is in jail.
She also smokes marihuana, and snorts cocaine. She has no
income at all, so she searches trashcans in search of objects
to sell on the streets (without success), and also to find
food; she tries also to get some food from a priest. Her
present boyfriend beats her. She only cares about her small
daughter, her only reason to live. At one moment, she goes
with her little child to a stadium to dance and sing with
famous “cumbia” bands, but first, ironically, she
must sing the national anthem, “We shall
comply…”Milka celebrates her daughter’s first
birthday with Coca-Cola, an obsession very much entrenched in
the slums.
There is also Cristian, 17, nearly illiterate, who after
being in a juvenile detention center, where he participates
also in the ritual of cutting his arms, is sent by his
grandparents to USA, as an illegal immigrant where he hopes
to earn some money. He must be very careful with what he says
to the immigration officers, and he must hide his scars.
Before that, he must accept a rap from his grandmother.
Pablo, a friend of Neno, works on the streets advertising a
massage parlor. He also paints a very sad picture “for
mother’s day”, and tattoos himself with the colors
of his favorite football club Peñarol.
Milka tries to convince her little daughter about the
importance of Peñarol, as the child receives vaccines.
There are many secondary characters, such as three underage
murderers, who play cards at the detention center, telling
each other how they killed their respective victims.
There are two young people at the juvenile detention center,
who only watch “telenovelas” (soap operas), in
silence. Also, Neno’s pals, who dance and sing Uruguayan
rock and rap.
Carina’s best friend, Angela, who tries to comfort her
after her brother’s death, and who organizes a football
match among women, and accompanies Carina to a Brazilian
samba rehearsal.
A pal sniffs glue to the beat of Cocaine by Eric Clapton.
Some points of view are expressed by Carina and Neno’s
mother, some other are stated through Carina and Neno.
Carina’s mother explains some of her prostitution
experience to Carina: “You will meet important
people.”
Carina's small child tries to bathe the cat in a very rough
way, and at another point he is very aggressive with fire.
The other small child, Daiana, happily agrees to have her
face painted for Carnival by her grandmother, but we suspect
she is also being introduced into a future life of
prostitution.
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