Original subtitles

THE DAUGHTERS OF FIRE

Bye.

"Antarctica, 1968," says the title card.

Many years before I was born.

However, this place has surely not changed a bit.

There are systems that never change.

Even if time would seem to modify it all,

the military and the clergy are logics with no solution.

They leave indelible marks forever.

Their bodies are the same,

the same suits, the same men

carrying a story of borders and suppression.

I think of the scientists who disembarked here in 1968.

How could the bodies of those women who already

defied the dominant paradigms exercising science

as a way of life when they arrived here?

We are the granddaughters, the great granddaughters,

the daughters and the sisters

of those who put their art and their body, their territory

and their landscape as heretic torches

to light up a new sky.

We are The Daughters of Fire.

The problem is never the representation of the bodies,

the problem is how those bodies become territory and landscape

in front of the camera.

I was missing you.

“Was missing”? It’s “I missed you.”

Are you gonna spend your life correcting me?

You’re so annoying.

My love.

I’m hungry.

Let’s go out.

No. I don’t feel like it. Don’t you have anything?

Ok, let’s see.

Don’t complain.

Agustina…

I’ve spent a month on the other side of the world

and you couldn’t think of a chocolate bar?

I’ve spent a whole month thinking about your backside

our world, and no, no chocolate bars.

It was nice being disconnected from the world.

It wasn’t what I thought it would be, though.

I don’t know, I imagined everything white, penguins…

And it was all black dirt, it was full of military people,

the food was awful…

Anything new here?

- Mariana split up. - Really?

Yeah, finally.

Nachi won the bodybuilding title…

And I missed you like crazy.

And I found some amazing rocks to jump in the lake.

You can go in from 2 to 4, otherwise you’ll freeze to death,

suit and all.

Why do you tell me these things when you know how much they scare me?

It’s boring if I don’t.

What a pain in the ass!

Who is it?

How would I know who it is?

Well, check, then.

My mom.

What does she want?

She wants to sell dad’s Torino.

You can’t even begin to imagine what that car is like.

They’re coming from Necochea to see it.

My dad cured it from an evil eye.

The car, you mean?

- Haven’t I told you? - No.

He put a plate full of water on the hood…

and bubbles started coming out.

And that means that the car has the evil eye?

Oh, girl, you may have seen lots of Korean movies,

but you know nothing about popular knowledge.

I’ll kill my mom if she sells the car.

My dad loved it.

Hey, why don’t we go down there and rescue it?

You’ll get to see my house.

And your mother?

Uh huh.

My room looks exactly as it did 20 years ago.

Really?

You could see my posters, the ones I jerked off with

as a teenager.

- Posters for masturbating? - Mhmm.

Like what, for example?

Like Diana, from “V”.

- You’re fucking with me. - No, I’m not.

No, Diana kills me.

Diana kills me with that tight suit and those alien tits.

Well, my tits aren’t alien, but…

Shut up, your tits are beautiful.

I have a neoprene suit.

What did my fish do all this time we’ve been apart?

Your fish? Nothing.

I’m so great.

You’re terrible.

What about you?

Did you come up with a new movie?

Yeah.

Porn.

Really?

No…

- Really? - Yes.

- Oh, well… - What? It turns you on?

Maybe?

Come here.

You naughty girl.

- Are you ok? - Yeah, I’m already used to you.

Thanks.

Two tequilas.

Dykes.

Dyke.

What’s the matter with you?

What the fuck is going on here, huh?

The fags’ table, the dykes… What’s going on?

What are you saying?

- What are you doing, crazy bitch! - Stop, stop, stop.

We’re looking for this girl.

Oh, no, I don’t know her. I was leaving for practice

because otherwise I’ll waste the two hours I have and I’ll freeze.

I am an open-water champion. They sent my suit from Australia,

it’s great, warm, light. It cost me a fortune.

It’s not very comfortable for peeing, but hey.

- So, have you seen this girl? - No, officer. I told you.

I know there was trouble at that bar,

but we were there minding our own business,

I was a bit tipsy, my girlfriend had just arrived from abroad.

We were celebrating when this mess took place at the bar

with those horrible guys.

I defended myself, just a bit, though, even though I’m strong

due to my activity, but my girlfriend’s a bit weak,

and she was almost about to faint, and I was there with her.

But I heard some pounding,

it seems that some guys, some blonde foreigners

were having a drink.

They practiced self-defense. That’s something very well-known,

very usual in Europe, you know?

I was lucky enough to travel a lot, always swimming, you know?

For example, something very curious happens in Germany,

and it’s that everyone there practices aikido.

It’s a self-defense martial art.

And it seems like it’s not a big deal,

but you could end up with a broken arm.

And I wouldn’t want to see you without an arm, officer.

Could you hold this for me, please? One second, one second.

So I buy some time.

Cold, isn’t it?

There we go.

That’s it. Thanks! See you!

What do I narrate when I narrate porn?

Laying my body on the narrative,

let the narrative open its mouth,

let the narrative quench my voracity over my doomed body.

There is something about pleasure that is impossible to represent.

There is no way of creating verisimilitude.

We are end up losing ourselves for hours

in the forearm of a loved one,

letting the marks of that skin render us dizzy.

I want to lose my mind,

I want to lose it all,

I want my pussy to become a generous, mooching hole.

How to show this in a porno?

If there’s no trick and there’s pleasure,

sensuality, availability,

time, is it porn?

Or is pornography just the objectification of the bodies?

If the subjectivity of those bodies is not destroyed,

do they cease to belong in that genre?

We are on a wild quest,

we are looking for body and history all at once.

I’m searching while lost and forgotten by everyone.

Yeah, actually we used it to take the kids to school,

to Caleta Valdés.

Later they put up a school here and we stopped using it.

Yeah, the thing is that if it hasn’t been used throughout the winter,

some v-belt could have gotten rusty,

like that of the alternator, for example.

It looks cared for, though.

But the state of the timing belt…

If it got strangled, we’re gonna have to change it…

And deduct it from the price.

And how much would that be?

Lots of log shots for a porn movie, don’t you think so?

Our viewers are dozing off.

Don’t underestimate my fans.

Let’s switch, if you’re tired.

I love handling big things.

I can imagine.

So do I, including my girl.

I’m fine, thanks.

Is there an itinerary or do we just go with the flow?

We were thinking of going to Puerto Madryn.

But first I want to make a stop at Caleta, to visit a childhood friend.

- From Lobería? - Yes.

But when we were little, her family moved away and I never saw her again.

How do you know this one’s from Lobería?

Did she already tell you about her adventures as a girl-scout?

Yeah, she also told me she wants to take you to meet your mother-in-law.

Yeah, I’m scared to death.

Our mother-in-law.

Hey, could you move the camera? It appears in the shot.

I think I fucked up.

Oh, no, don’t worry.

The mic’s support is damaged, it’s ok.

You would have come down hard on me.

Of course.

Could you turn it off, please?

No! No!

No, Agustina, the red one.

There you go.

Thanks.

Oh, well, I guess she does everything right.

Does she?

- Stop it, Agustina, you’re moving me! - Okay, sorry.

How long have you been together?

- Three years. - Four.

Well, I think you need a nap.

And you drive.

- Oh, I’m the bus driver, now? - You said you liked it.

Why am I such a bigmouth?

Although, if you want, we’ll gag you lovingly.

- I know a good technique. - I can imagine.

I have never returned.

Everything’s the same as when we were kids.

Now all I wanna do is rescue dad’s car.

Even Necochea is full of vultures who want to buy it from my mom.

The Torino? The one with the evil eye?

Yes, my father’s love.

Are they still doing the water Stations of the Cross in Madryn?

The one where they dive?

Yeah. I wanted to go, but…

We’ll take you! We have this great bus. We left it gorgeous.

It’s very comfortable, it feels like home.

- Do you have a suit? - I think it’s broken.

Let me see it.

I know an infallible patching technique.

And if it doesn’t work, I have an old one I can give to you.

Thanks.

Maybe it’s a bit tight.

You’ve grown strong over the years.

Remember how skinny I was?

How could I forget?

With your white overalls and your southern lapwing legs.

Remember when we found the Mistela bottle and ended up dancing

in the henhouse?

Scaring the chicks and singing Kiss songs.

- Thanks! - Hi, thanks.

I’m still taking notes.

Even if it proves impossible for me to write “Scene 1,”

I think I’m writing a film.

Who could possibly write this way?

If a film is always a journey,

then who could write it while on a journey?

I should get off this van and run downhill to write:

Scene 1:

Carmen walks through the vicinity of a lake,

the lake appears shiny, its surface is like an immaculate body,

the camera elevates itself and the land becomes a resistant body,

the landscape reveals itself as erotic, sexual,

wild, and tender.

The landscape becomes a wounded animal

to the eyes that devour it.

Carmen sits on a rock.

The land is not another thing, there is no support here,

we roam over that body,

looking for a final breath that will always have something

of the first dry puff,

an air in common

that make us people.

Character note:

Francisca:

What Francisca enjoys the most is being watched.

All of her body has spasms when she feels a gaze

external to the scene.

The first gaze was that of her mother,

a mother who spied on her

while she pretended not to see her

and the bidet’s water pounded her glowing vulva.

Her small body shook with each pounding

of the stream of water on her virgin pussy.

A hairless pussy.

Smooth and healthy.

A pussy full of intrigue.

Until she felt her mother’s gaze entering her skin,

her candy-colored eyes populated her body

until exploding in a scream,

some sort of yell that caused her mother to open the door

and made her faint with her clitoris open like a flower.

Then came the system’s lockdowns,

her mother’s lectures,

her father’s impositions,

the definitive seclusion of pleasure,

or pleasure becoming impossibility in itself.

The candy-colored eyes crystallized in memory.

Life,

sex,

like a frenzied search to recompose that gaze.

The forbidden will be the vomit of rancid gazes

that observe unknown affections with a perverse retina.

At least I wrote a shot this week.

If I write one shot per week, in…

six hundred weeks?

I’ll have a script, right?

Were you dreaming?

Where’s the rest?

Around.

Viole, why did we take this road?

I don’t like it at all.

We’re moving further and further away from the sea.

To you it’s the same, of course.

But you know, Viole, that for me, it’s something physical.

If I’m far away from the water, I get dry, even my soul dries.

If I spend more than three or four days without water,

without a sea or a river near, I dehydrate, my skin scales off.

Remember that time we went to Córdoba, to that shitty place?

It was the desert.

Are you gonna fall for her, too?

On the territory of love:

The odyssey spreads out like the cartography of a new continent.

One has to learn everything,

even invent new measuring devices,

find new verbs in order to name the discoveries.

Character notes:

Rosario and Sofía.

They loved each other in a violent way.

They turned fury into a cause

even in the very impossibility of moving away from it.

The idea of romantic love

contains violence in its very self.

It’s impossible to pursue it without it breaking apart.

And they know that

and inhabited it in all its power,

also in anger, and from there,

they perverted it to the point of destruction.

Now they’re different.

Rosario only enjoys sex with herself.

Energies overwhelm her.

She’s extremely sensitive and can only focus

on the loss of conscience when she’s by herself.

Completely alone, if possible.

She stopped having sex with Sofía a while ago.

And at first, that put Sofía

in a place of absolute bewilderment,

but later felt a freedom unknown to her.

She desires her madly.

And not being able to silence that desire

is what makes her experience things

to the limit of her muscles,

to the limit of her sense of smell,

to the limit of her own limits.

Does that limit exist?

What would that limit be?

The culmination of pleasure?

Culminating as an origin

and bringing down any kind of legend

about the pleasureless body.

Because there is no subject or sacrifice here,

because there is no offering and there is no one to offer.

Because pleasure and happiness

have not been expelled from the cosmic order,

they do not belong to a superior law.

Because when there is no cult, image or way of representing it,

there is no neglect.

Is this the beginning of a new era?

The birth of a nation?

Or is the idea of nation too patriarchal?

A group is forming that seeks for a history of contagion,

not inheritance.

Hi.

How weird it is to find someone running around here.

You’re so bold.

Hi. I love the way you talk.

I came pedaling from Salta.

My last trip was to the north.

I got to Tapusco.

Wow, that’s great!

Do you run?

Yeah. I’m an amateur.

I love the way you pronounce the letter “r.”

Well, actually I swim in open water.

- I won a few medals. - You swim around here?

Wow, it must be cold.

Yeah, but I have a suit that’s the bomb.

I also climb.

Me too!

Finally.

I thought you were never gonna stop running.

Tell me something with an “r.”

I’m Rubí.

Robust,

irresistible,

reveler,

romantic.

They kill me. Again! Again!

I’m Rubí.

Romantic,

irresistible,

reveler.

I need to pee.

I can't, I can't. I'm too nervous.

See, I can't!

- I peed a lot! - I can't!

We used to be best friends when we were little.

But she became a rural teacher and moved to the country

and married this horrible guy.

Did she split up?

No, she’s very catholic.

As she could never become pregnant, the guy always uses that in his favor.

And why does she stay?

Don’t think of it as though she were you.

The guy has her very subdued.

He doesn’t let her do anything

and she feels guilty for not even having fulfilled

her obligations with a child.

She’s desperate. It’s driving her insane.

We have to get her out of there.

No, we have to make sure he leaves town and let her keep her school.

We should kick his ass.

What for? So he comes back and kills her?

You’re not thinking ahead.

Of course. The great strategist.

And how do we manage to make him leave and never come back?

What was the name of the town where Flora lives?

Rey Muerto (Dead King).

I thought you quit.

No. I don’t smoke at home.

But I do smoke when I come back from school.

Because he takes me in the mornings with his truck.

But when I come back, I have to walk 4 kilometers.

And I like it.

I light one, and then another. And think. And smoke.

It’s my alone time, I like it a lot.

You have a lot of endurance. 4 kilometers, and smoking.

I have endurance to spare.

But I’m so tired.

How about we leave?

Do you wanna come to the procession in Madryn?

My friend will lend us a suit.

No, I can’t.

The town overwhelms sometimes, too.

I escape.

I move a bit and my ideas air out.

I’d love to.

You know what I’d love?

I’d love for him to disappear from the face of the Earth.

I swear, sometimes I picture him having an accident with his tractor

or his harvester.

I picture his mutilated body.

The burial.

And I cry.

It relieves me,

but I also feel guilt.

Don’t you want to have children?

No way.

Let’s smoke another, shall we?

Pretend you’re walking.

You.

On all fours, come here.

What are you doing, you idiot?

They told me in town that you’re walking around

with some out-of-town dykes.

Do you mean us?

What are these bags?

Don’t tell me you were thinking of leaving with these bitches.

Let’s go home.

They’re not for me.

It’s you who’s leaving.

Oh, really? I’m leaving?

What, these tomboys are gonna kick me out of my house?

No, it’s me who wants you gone.

Huh? You want what? Come here.

Don’t you understand what she wants?

Here.

What do you want? Are you paying me to fuck all of you?

It’s for you to eat and sleep until you find a job

where the train takes you.

The ticket’s already been paid for.

And we have friends there to make sure you never come back.

Listen to me, you fucking coon.

Do you think I’m scared of you and all your little friends?

Oh, you make videos together?

Look, there’s you.

Look at you, with your little bermuda shorts, with those skinny little legs.

Is that the reason you’re all dykes?

Oh, let’s see, here comes a cop.

Wait a minute, is that you?

Where did you learn to fight like that? Huh?

Oh, no, darling, stop that, you’re gonna kill the guy.

Are you scared of blood?

It seems us girls are more used to it.

Come on, we wanna see the champion live, come on, fight, fight!

It won’t be necessary. Here comes your train.

Have a good trip.

Go, go.

Go, Roli. Go.

Come on, get out!

Leave!

Get out!

- Get outta here! - Come on, leave!

Stop that, you fucking bitch.

Grab your stuff and get the fuck out!

- Go! - Go, you asshole!

You bitches! Fucking coons!

Come on, quickly.

You fat fuck!

Go!

Leave! Just go!

Bye.

- You think I’m scared of you? - Get out!

Leave, you asshole!

I’m leaving because otherwise I’ll kill you. Fuckin coons!

Get outta here, already!

Grab your stuff and go!

That’s it, that’s it, it’s over.

Breathe.

- It’s over. - Thanks!

It’s over.

- Come on. - Come on.

You were amazing.

You were great.

Carmen writes a poem.

Me, who had your poop in my hand.

Me, who felt your body tremble over mine.

Me, who embraced your wet, lukewarm skin

until I stopped feeling mine.

Me, who sucked on my lips for days, searching for the remains

of your taste.

Me, who made my muscles yours.

Who gave you my air and my soil.

Who drank from your flesh with my teeth.

Who found all of my being in the flood of your erect pussy.

Who lost all of my being between your legs.

Who put out the fire of my tongue in your mare tears.

Who chewed on your pupils that taste like warm blood.

Who felt your bones open over my fist.

Who lost my hand in the softness of your body.

Who washed all the patriarchy off your conscience with my blood.

Me, who became water, puddle, river, sea, ocean over your body.

Until I stopped being myself.

Until I stopped being something that inhabits this land.

Until I stopped being a piece of this rope and became

a bitter rock, sand, inorganic matter,

manure under the light of the sky, food for scavengers,

innards in the sun turning to ashes,

full of your smell, full of mine.

One same smell.

Your love being one.

My love, all together.

Me, who is no longer that me before you,

I embrace all of your being in this nascent distance,

and tell you, my beloved, that missing you doesn’t hurt,

and will never hurt.

Because your water runs in my blood, and my veins run in your water.

Because you’re also my voice and my tongue,

and my legs that run and find each other.

Even if our bodies don’t collide,

even if our bodies don’t see each other,

they have already been covered up.

Carmen, with her melancholy on her back, keeps writing:

Saying goodbye to Francisca was very hard for me,

so much so that I wrote her this poem and,

while I was writing it,

I realized that in front of the possibility of an absence

each lover was invoked.

Like in a furious conspiracy against loss,

all of them appeared

and took over my writing with details

that aren’t even theirs.

In every stop, in every comma,

in every line break,

they appeared differently.

Violeta in her fear,

and Agustina in her boldness,

and Francisca in her conviction, and Sofía in her spirituality,

and Rosario in her passion,

and Flora in her fragility,

and Ruby in her eroticism.

Another voice remembered, traveled

and turned into as many voices.

And are all of them athletes?

All of them who aren’t your girlfriend, that is.

Are they athletes, fellow trainees?

This dish is beautiful.

It is, isn’t it?

They brought it from Berlin.

It looks ceramic, but it’s enameled.

- Beautiful, isn’t it? - Yes.

I make pottery.

- Oh, yeah? Really? - Yes.

You’re such a genius.

I love people who are able to do those kinds of things.

Yeah, she was terrible at school.

At Home Economics.

Actually, at every subject.

She only did well in P.E.

Thanks, mom.

And what do you do? Cups? Figures?

Yeah, utilitarian items, for the kitchen.

I love the kitchen.

If you want, if you stay, I’ll prepare some mushrooms.

Yes, please!

You have no idea how great her mushrooms are.

And the eggplants?

I don’t eat that, I’m just like my father.

I only eat barbecue.

Yes, and then his heart exploded.

Her father’s.

I like fire.

- So do I. - Yes?

In fact, what I like most about pottery

is fire and the potter’s wheel.

The potter’s wheel, like that movie.

Yeah, "Ghost". That one.

The one with the ghost and the girl.

Yes, Demi Moore.

Do you remember when we saw it, mom?

Yes.

- I was very little. - Yes.

When Cele had the video store.

Your dad said you were too little and he had to cover your eyes.

During the potter’s wheel scene?

Your dad was quite silly, sometimes.

He pretended he was.

- And the song was very nice, right? - Yes.

The one in the film? How was it?

I don’t remember.

I like your room.

Yeah.

I still have some things left.

Let’s see what’s here.

My party dress.

From when I won my first medal as a child swimmer.

What’s going on now?

My grandmother was half-German, half Indian.

She would also put pork in it.

But ever since Juan died, I don’t cook meat anymore.

And I changed the recipe years ago and now use dark beer

during cooking.

Yummy! Do you have a vegetable garden, too, madam?

Don’t call me “madam”!

Do you?

Yes, of course I do.

I’ll take you there afterwards, if you want.

Yeah, I’d love to.

Where the henhouse used to stand, I started growing mushrooms.

Mushrooms are beautiful.

Don’t bother, though, the recipe’s just about enough.

I have a special tray in a high shelf,

so no one gets mistaken and for people not to accuse me

of being a drug dealer.

And I have some kids who help me with the garden,

and also lend a hand with the mushrooms.

Are you raising hallucinogenic mushrooms?

No, I don’t really raise them, I grow them.

But hey, I could raise these, too.

Do you think your friends will get mad if we put

some mushrooms in the food?

Come here, I’ll take you.

Let’s go get them.

A new character enters the scene and modifies the entire plot,

or a small incident makes the entire plot take a turn.

This is how it would be in a text that still embraces

ideas of plot instead of scheme.

However: if the plot alters its structure

and becomes framework,

seam, vortex and flow,

then I can only surrender to its landscape,

to the small threads of its joyful territory,

to the body that shrieks from the screen,

to the body that is pleasure and nothing else.

And this way, I become porn.

Scene 50:

The water Stations of the Cross becomes impossible,

heresy spills until it becomes narrative.

They are moans coming out of the water,

eating the dry air that enters their sadistic female lungs

for the first time.

They owe themselves to history,

far from any mandate,

they become insurgence and vertigo.

- Welcome. - Thank you.

- Hi, gorgeous. - Hi.

- Welcome, the house is yours. - Thanks.

Hi.