The Bad Intentions

The Bad Intentions

Theatrical Poster
Las Malas Intenciones
Directed by Rosario García-Montero
Produced by Benito Mueller, Wolfgang Mueller, Rosario Garcia-Montero, Paul Typaldos
Written by Rosario Garcia-Montero
Starring Fatima Buntinx
Cinematography Rodrigo Pulpeiro
Edited by Rosario Suarez
Production
company
Barry Films, Garmont Films
Distributed by Ondamax Films (World-wide), 3C Films Group (Argentina)
Release dates
  • February 2011 (2011-02) (Berlin)
  • 13 October 2011 (2011-10-13) (Peru)
Running time
 110 minutes
Country Peru
Language Spanish

The Bad Intentions (Spanish: Las malas intenciones) is a 2011 Peruvian drama film written and directed by Rosario García-Montero.[1] The film premiered at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival in 2011.[2] It won the award for Best Latin American Feature Film at the 2011 Mar del Plata Film Festival.[3] It was also selected as the Peruvian entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist.[4] The film's lead actress Fátima Buntinx was nominated for a Young Artist Award as Best Young Actress in an International Feature Film.[5]

Plot

Cayetana de los Heros is a lonely and solemn 8 year old child growing up in Peru during the turbulent 1980s. Her parents are divorced and she hardly ever sees her disinterested father,the quintessential Latino playboy,much to her dismay. Instead she resides with her remarried mother and stepfather in a gated property on the outskirts of Lima,cared for primarily by servants,while they travel abroad.

The film begins with a picture show and an unseen narrator recounting the fatal sacrifices former Peruvian military leaders made for their country. The scene then cuts to a classroom full of girls as a siren suddenly goes off and the children are evacuated from the building. A driver picks her up from school referring to her as Miss Cayetana,but she is unfazed by the status and remains mostly silent on the way home though at one point when a beggar approaches car she offers him her medication and comments that it suppresses the appetite.

At home later,Cayetana sits alone at the table in front of a full plate of food and doesn't touch it at all,until a maid scolds her and clears the table. The maids fuss over her in the morning so that she looks pretty for her mother's return, but she has to be dragged out of the closet in which she is hiding to go meet her mother, because she doesn't want to see her. Eventually she sits stiffly on her mother's lap as her stepfather looks on and gives her gifts,but the reunion doesn't last long when Cayetana reacts to her mother's pregnancy news by storming out of the room into hee bedroom. She then decides to run away,but gets lost and is forced to return home. It is then she decides to punish her mother by withdrawing all affections and dying on the baby's delivery date.

At school, her cousin Jemina although being chronically ill,is a source of companionship and reprieve, following her to the bathroom when she dumps her lunch in the trash and offering to share her own lunch. Cayetana withdraws even deeper into herself and begins to act out at home,stealing the money from her parents' bedroom meant to pay the contractors building a backyard pool on Christmas Eve and blames a maid,almost getting the woman arrested. She lies when confronted and escapes punishment. Her worried parents' send her away on vacation somewhere on the Peruvian coast with Jemina's family after the holiday festivities,not knowing what else to do with her.

The vacation is pleasant with boating, swimming, playing on the beach with Jemina, and leisurely meals. For the first time in a long while, Cayetana is truly content and happy,until her mother and stepfather arrive unannounced hoping to surprise Cayetana. She refuses to hug or even speak to her by now noticeably pregnant mother though. Jemina suffers a medical emergency one night and is whisked off to hospital leaving Cayetana to wander the beach alone eventually climbing a very steep sand dune and experiencing a hallucination/vision of Jemina who tells her that she loves and will always watch over her.

When Cayetana is dropped off at vacation's end it is obvious that the political situation has worsened significantly and her parents' are lighting the house with candles instead of electricity. On the way to school one morning her mother drives erratically and gets them lost before asking Cayetana to hand her a pill from a prescription bottle for her nerves that turns out to be a powerful narcotic painkiller. She snatches the bottle away angrily when Cayetana reads the label and being the rather intelligent child she is guesses that the medication isn't a good thing.

Soon Cayetana's mother and stepfather leave for the hospital leaving her once again with the servants. A few days later she is taken to the hospital and dropped off to see her newborn half-brother. While there she wanders the wards aimlessly ending up outside the door of Jemina's room where a doctor is testing the latter with coordination exercises and helps Jemina do the test by miming the actions unseen by the doctor. It is clear that Jemina's mind is no longer all there and she is incredibly weak,not recognizing Cayetana at all. When Cayetana finally makes her way to the maternity ward and nursery,she picks the wrong baby out as her mother's son for some reason and hisses with obvious jealousy that she will not be upstaged by him. She no longer wants to die.

Outside the hospital in the afternoon Cayetana is approached by a man who introduces himself as her new driver who has come to take her home again. Unlike at the beginning of the film when she sat forlornly during the ride,she is lively and shouts out the window in the pouring rain,having seemly decided to accept the things she cannot change and enjoy the rest of her childhood.

Cast

Soundtrack

Title Songwriters Performers
"La Negrita"[6] Traditional Rosario García-Montero
"La Catalina"[6] Traditional (Spain) Rosario García-Montero
"A la molina no voy mas"[6] Traditional (Peru) Rosario García-Montero
"Tengo una muneca"[6] Traditional Rosario García-Montero
"Es mi vida"[6] Salvatore Adamo, EMI Music Salvatore Adamo

See also

References

  1. ↑ Smith, Ian Hayden (2012). International Film Guide 2012. p. 57. ISBN 978-1908215017.
  2. ↑ "Las Malas Intenciones". Berlin. Retrieved 16 June 2013.
  3. ↑ "In Mar del Plata, everything was Cinema". Mar del Plata. Retrieved 6 April 2012.
  4. ↑ De La Fuente, Anna Marie (26 September 2012). "'Bad' is good for Peru". Variety. Reed Business Information. Retrieved 27 September 2012.
  5. ↑ "34th Annual Young Artist Awards". YoungArtistAwards.org. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "Las Malas Intenciones (2011) - Soundtracks". IMDb.com. Internet Movie Database. 2011. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
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