The table is littered with toys, building blocks, and plastic parts, and this is meant to be a dining table. Small children and babies run around, the background noises are shrill. In Mauro Delperos‘ MATERNAL, young mothers live with old nuns in a religious centre in Buenos Aires: the nuns lead the cloister under strict supervision and make it possible for single mothers like Lu and Fati to have housing and care. Most of the women there are teenagers with bables or pregnant minors. Nun Paola enters the home to take her last vows: she‘s a young woman who has decided never to have children.

Maternal images collide: the caring nuns who scurry along the holy statues in the long corridors and the smoking women in hot pants dancing lasciviously to cumbia music. On one side there are stern faces and white dresses, on the other side there are waxed legs and eyeliners. When young Lu disappears, leaving behind her daughter Nina, Paola takes care of the little girl. Delpo, who previously made documentaries, portrays this in a composed way, with calm shots that roam through the cloister‘s long corridors. The conflict between the demands of a nun and Paola‘s maternal feelings is blatantly obvious. The actresses are wonderful, especially Agustina Malale as Lu, who is fresh faced and might not fit the image she tries to put on – not a perfect one, but one of a loving mother who wants to raise her daughter. The children learn about the “model family“ from the nuns: mother, father, child, or more specifically, Mary, Joseph and Jesus. But MATERNAL shows that there are other love models in its own way.

Lili Hering

Translation: Elinor Lewy