- In 19th century Argentina, when a man returns to his family's plantation after 15 years, it revives a violent past, slave abuses and evil spirits.
- The story (1855-1875) of the Guiraldes family and La Mercedaria, their hacienda, as managed by the owner's cruel husband, who not only mistreats his own wife and sick young son, but also abuses all the black slaves who live and work under him. The husband has never loved his wife and child, but is only interested in profiting and expanding his hacienda. As the film opens, when he finds one of the slaves playing with his son, he whips him so badly that the boy commits suicide by hanging himself. The long suffering wife sends their son, Rodrigo, to go live in Buenos Aires, where he remains until grown, Meanwhile, the wife, the true owner of La Mercedaria, after being responsible for having one of the slaves hung and burned to death for stealing her religious icon, ends up mentally ill. Some 15 years later Rodrigo returns accompanied by his young wife. There Rodrigo remains unable to get along with his demanding father, who has always viewed him as a weak person. While he and his wife both want to return back to the capital, the pregnancy of the wife, who suffers injury from a fall, forces them to remain. However, both of them perish, as does the mother, due to black magic practiced by the slaves who have suffered even death at the hands of their evil master. In the end only the husband survives, but he too meets a strange fate when the newborn heir to his estate turns out to be a completely unanticipated infant.
Written by Gardiner S. Robinson, Panama City, Panama email; gsrobins17@gmail.com
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