This is a sneaky film, it sneaks up on you slowly, decisively and then drops you into an abyss. A small Spanish town, all but abandoned, is filled with dangerous potholes that swallow up wandering tourists. Suddenly there is a new visitor.
Each townsperson projects all of their hopes, dreams, needs and fears on him, even though he can't speak Spanish, which is the cause of many a humorous exchange. Maybe he'll reopen the long abandoned store he's living in and fulfill everyone's needs. The townspeople make a list.
A youth, oppressed by his family, escapes to paint the newbie's abode. His good Christian mother, projects on this visitor a sex "perp" identity, trying to enchain her son in his role as a useless child, who must suffer forever her cruel and perpetual "protection".
A young girl trying to escape her father's descent into prostitution and drink, constantly criticizes the visitor. But as he can't understand her language, only her desperate straits, so he offers her a safe place to sleep, and food, thereby upsetting her world through simple kindness.
The middle aged town gossip comes filled with information, but the visitor cannot understand her. Still, she uses his attention to plot her next move in her quest to become a mother, using indiscriminately the only men left in town willing or able for such hijinks.
All of these stories finally intersect revealing why the visitor has come and why he never leaves. Without giving anything further away, all that remains is the truth, that children may be used as a form of continuance by any town anywhere. But more importantly that their survival as realized human beings depends on real parenting, decided not by blood ties or genetics, but by heart.
Each townsperson projects all of their hopes, dreams, needs and fears on him, even though he can't speak Spanish, which is the cause of many a humorous exchange. Maybe he'll reopen the long abandoned store he's living in and fulfill everyone's needs. The townspeople make a list.
A youth, oppressed by his family, escapes to paint the newbie's abode. His good Christian mother, projects on this visitor a sex "perp" identity, trying to enchain her son in his role as a useless child, who must suffer forever her cruel and perpetual "protection".
A young girl trying to escape her father's descent into prostitution and drink, constantly criticizes the visitor. But as he can't understand her language, only her desperate straits, so he offers her a safe place to sleep, and food, thereby upsetting her world through simple kindness.
The middle aged town gossip comes filled with information, but the visitor cannot understand her. Still, she uses his attention to plot her next move in her quest to become a mother, using indiscriminately the only men left in town willing or able for such hijinks.
All of these stories finally intersect revealing why the visitor has come and why he never leaves. Without giving anything further away, all that remains is the truth, that children may be used as a form of continuance by any town anywhere. But more importantly that their survival as realized human beings depends on real parenting, decided not by blood ties or genetics, but by heart.