La camarista

La Camarista (The Chambermaid, 2019) by mexican director Lila Avilés is a film that shows a level of freedom within the confines of a restricted budget that is just mindblowing.

If you read the rest of the reviews around here you will get a sense of the style it's shot: the camera, using beautiful cinematography, is a passive witness to a hotel chambermaid's daily routine. There is no spectacularity, not an earthquake to shatter the main character, she's never accused of stealing stuff... There's no dramatic trigger to turn this story into a powerhouse drama. Instead, Avilés chooses, wisely, to dwell on her star's nuanced but effective performance. Gabriela Cartol's Evelina (the maid in the title) is a shy, dreamy and sometimes annoying woman. A real person instead of a stereotype. We're not here to lament her poverty, but to join her daily conversations, her momentary daydreaming, her spirit breaking apart or becoming stronger.

Avilés is not interested on bringing disaster into her characters' lives. She doesn't want them to unravel, instead we're drawn into this colossal universe of a big city hotel and breaks into its small spaces and corners, revealing beauty in routine.

An overall enjoyable experience for audiences who relish subtlety, La Camarista manages to feel as a refreshing take on a cliché subject.

For over an hour and a half, I watched the daily routine of a chambermaid at a posh Mexico City hotel, and I wasn't the bit bored. In writer-director Lila Aviles's The Chambermaid, Eve (Gabriela Cartol) experiences with us through the magic of the camera a life as a maid in a hotel with small events that take her through aspiration, eroticism, and disappointment.

Aviles's camera moves very little as it lets Cartol's expressive face tell us about the highs and lows of a blue-collar mom working for her baby and her own social elevation. Not only is she likeable, but she is admirable for the way she does her very best at housekeeping and improving her lot in life with evening school.

Each fold of a sheet or electroshock titillation from co-worker Minitoy (Teresa Sanchez) lets us in to her yearnings and her escapes. When we watch her perform an erotic act for a window washer admirer, we see a 24-year old woman with passions that go beyond her staid working life. Her emergence into an extrovert in her evening class is, like her, slow but sure as she grows into independence and extroversion.

What matters here is that an unexemplary life has yearnings and romance that are hidden to everyone but the camera, revealing a woman of many layers and good intentions, buffeted by fate and her own kindnesses from her desires and ambitions. As in Alfonse Cuaron's Roma, the servant has the insight, but unlike Roma, The Chambermaid is bereft of nostalgia and dominated by the quotidian forces that define modern life, rich or poor.

Here is a winning effort from a first-time filmmaker and a memorable slice of life sure to inform how we see housekeeping in whatever hotel we visit, be it Mexico City, London, or any other great city that hides the lives of the working poor.

I genuinely felt bad for the maid in this film, but I feel even more bad for the fact that I wasted an hour and forty minutes watching an unfocused and unguided film that all could have been trimmed down to a twenty minute short film. The Chambermaid could basically be summed up like this: woman struggles in her job as a hotel maid, and while attempting to get her GED, she continuously suffers from people overlooking her and being an outcast in society. Yes, that sounds all fine and dandy, but again, these freaking indie films just love showing main characters walking around for what seems like hours.

The main character cleans. Then she walks down the hall. She stares at random objects. She cleans some blankets. She goes to GED classes. She speaks one sentence. Repeat. It gets extremely boring and repetitive.

I will say that I was enlightened with getting an insight into the struggles of what Mexican maids have to go through, especially in their struggle to rank up in their crummy job, but that does not make this film good. The main character was horribly developed and literally had no character, so how am I supposed to really care? I sympathize with maids, but I do not sympathize with her.

All in all, this was a boring film that really needs a trim of about an hour. Get rid of GED crap. Get rid of phone calls to home. Get rid of boring shots of her cleaning for half of the runtime, and just trim it to like a quarter. Maybe focus more on the people, like the young woman with the child, who gave a bit of attention to our main character.

Watch the movie if you like to watch people clean or if you like watching people walk around while looking sad.

Obviously not for those looking for an action flick, this is a stark and personal look at the daily life of Eve, a 24-year-old introverted maid at a luxurious Mexico City hotel. Impeccably portrayed by Gabriela Cartol, Eve must try and deal with the mundane aspects of her job, often being treated as invisible by the guests, inter-staff politics, and trying to find enough time to see and talk to her young son as the job permits.

Yet Eve does aspire for a better future by taking a GED class and working hard to be placed at the top of the list for a better assignment on the 42nd floor. You can see the strain on her face as she endures various disappointments, but also believing that she has little choice but to keep this job. However, as the stress mounts we begin to see her act in some quite unexpected ways.

To me, this movie, directed by Gabriela Cartol, was rather fascinating and I think its realism was genuine. So for those viewers that like a quiet and cerebral film, with realistic acting that really captures a part of human life, then you may find this one to your liking.

The Chambermaid is a beautifully quiet look at a hotel housekeeper's daily existence. The film's narrative line is simple, yet the complexity of Gabriel Cartol's lead performance was stunning.

Anyone that has worked a menial or underappreciated job will appreciate the frustrating workplace dynamics where schmoozers who blow their own horn sometimes get ahead of quiet hardworking people.

In addition the film maker's symbolism of red and white shown in parallel construction was also striking.