Maids and Bosses by Abner Benaim

The job of maids, especially in South American countries where they are particularly common, may provide some passionate and polemical reflection on class warfare, the distinction of public and private spheres, ethnic issues and even the definition of family. These women of varied ages are put to work and live inside wealthy homes, doing the dishes, cooking and taking care of the kids. Simple tasks such as washing clothes become personal once the clothes include the boss’s underwear; watching a kid becomes very personal when the maternal instincts of the maid are applied to someone raised with a different education. There is no real solution here: this profession is doomed to tension and conflict.

With the idea that no point of view is better than the other, being only from a different perspective, director Abner Benaim invites several bosses and maids to sit in the same chair, against a neutral black setting, and tell about their experiences and frustrations. The system itself is interesting for these people are treated in the same way, with no tags of “boss” or “maid” shown on the screen.

What follows is a matter of logic: one woman explains how unthinkable it is that one cannot learn how to correctly place all the different kinds of plates on the table, while another exposes how ridiculous it is to have different kinds of plates if they are almost never used. The first explains how unacceptable it is to force food into a kid’s mouth while the second finds it ridiculous to let a kid be spoiled and do whatever he wants. There are different educations, different maternal figures and different moral constitutions living under the same roof, which leads to extreme cases such as theft and rape.

If the film had expanded this approach, we would have reached a fine and interesting sociological study on the populations of Panama and Argentina. Unfortunately, a taste for comedy leads the director to parody through the mise en scène of images with vengeful maids and uncontrollable kids. Even so, this rather short film exposes with a simple procedure the main differences – and similarities – between upper and lower classes.

By Bruno Carmelo