The Fish Child (2009)

After a long period with very little time on my hands, I’ve realised that almost all of the films I’ve seen in the last six or so months have been big famous films in the cinema. The ones I’ve been looking forward to for ages and the ones that everybody’s talking about. And as good as it is to see the Gatsbys and the World War Zs and so have the ability to discuss them excitedly with others, I thought it was about time to return to what I seem to do best – watching random films that no one has heard of.

So it was that I joined Netflix last night. That’s right: I have absconded from Love Film – abandoning it in favour of the younger, sexier model. Receiving DVDs through the post no longer really suits my viewing habits and Love Film Instant is pretty shoddy so why not branch out? That said, the first three films I searched for weren’t on Netflix either, although they are on Love Film on DVD – maybe I will once more return to the fold, truly repentant and admitting my error in judgement. I may then reap the rewards of Only God Forgives, Mud, and The Impostor... one disk at a time.

Anyway, whilst excitedly looking through the recommendations from Netflix and after some repeated “No Netflix – I definitely don’t want to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua!” I realised that many of recommendations were either crap (various saccharine American chic-flicks), or gay/lesbian films. That’ll be the influence of Mysterious Skin sinking in then. Hopefully the recommendations will sort themselves out in time but they’ve only got one month to impress me before I decide whether or not to pay for the service. The clock is ticking.

This gay/lesbian influence is only likely to increase however after watching The Fish Child (El Niño Pez) – the tale of Lala, a rich teenage girl in Buenos Aires who is in love with her (female) housemaid. This should have everything I enjoy in a film – strong female characters, foreign language, and a bit of sexual violence thrown in (no, I don’t know what’s wrong with me). It also has a bit of zipping about through time as the film is mostly told through flashbacks, showing the relationship between the two women develop as they plan for the future – running away to a fantasy house by a lake in Paraguay.

Whilst a definite story is there, and a good one too (there’s murder and mystery, one which we’re fed pieces of gradually through the film) it’s a story that’s really quite hard to follow. There aren’t many physical clues for us to gauge the timing of each individual scene, and I don’t think I’m wrong when I say that the flashbacks aren’t strictly in chronological order. The characters’ motivations seem to swing between extremes too and not completely believably.

Overall, it was nice (if nice is the right word about any of the films I watch), but I just didn’t get it. Even the title was only explained in a hurried way at the end. Perhaps that was supposed to be a climax – it wasn’t very climactic. The legend of ‘The Fish Child’ barely seemed to be relevant at all, although it was referred to sporadically. My main opinion seems to “that’s a shame, it could have been so good”.