In one intriguing sense, this is a Marxist allegory. Two working class women are alienated from their labours and their social roles. That alienation frees them from the entanglements of the social structure. In their freedom, they unite as individuals and work together to achieve a common goal. But these aren’t your typical members of the proletariat: they’re childlike sociopaths with schoolgirl giggles and bows in their hair. One of them is alienated primarily by her illiteracy, which puts her in a situation of perpetual lies and isolation; the other merely suffers from a severe case of ressentiment. The representative members of the bourgeoisie, who employ the illiterate woman as their maid, are kindly but condescending—talking about the maid as if she weren’t there, they exacerbate her alienation.
The film develops this situation with remarkable compactness. Right from the beginning, the score announces that something is deeply wrong and probably about to get worse. But then that score fades away for much of the film, and the plot continually develops in unexpected ways. Although the film’s aesthetic is primarily one of subdued naturalism, it manages to imbue small moments, such as the maid needing to read a grocery list, with palpable tension; and the film’s climax is almost excruciatingly tense (reminding me somewhat of Funny Games), partly due to very effective use of cross-cutting and Mozart. However, the tension is created not primarily via filmic techniques, but via the meticulous development of the characters and their situation, which creates a core of emotions and ethics for the scenes of tension. All in all, this is probably one of the best suspense films I’ve seen.
