The Daughters of Fire (Las Hijas del Fuego)

THE DAUGHTERS OF FIRE

Bye.

"Antarctica, 1968," says the title card.

Many years before I was born.

However, this place has surely not changed a bit.

There are systems that never change.

Even if time would seem to modify it all,

the military and the clergy are logics with no solution.

They leave indelible marks forever.

Their bodies are the same,

the same suits, the same men

carrying a story of borders and suppression.

I think of the scientists who disembarked here in 1968.

How could the bodies of those women who already

defied the dominant paradigms exercising science

as a way of life when they arrived here?

We are the granddaughters, the great granddaughters,

the daughters and the sisters

of those who put their art and their body, their territory

and their landscape as heretic torches

to light up a new sky.

We are The Daughters of Fire.

The problem is never the representation of the bodies,

the problem is how those bodies become territory and landscape

in front of the camera.

I was missing you.

“Was missing”? It’s “I missed you.”

Are you gonna spend your life correcting me?

You’re so annoying.

My love.

I’m hungry.

Let’s go out.

No. I don’t feel like it. Don’t you have anything?

Ok, let’s see.

Don’t complain.

Agustina…

I’ve spent a month on the other side of the world

and you couldn’t think of a chocolate bar?

I’ve spent a whole month thinking about your backside

our world, and no, no chocolate bars.

It was nice being disconnected from the world.

It wasn’t what I thought it would be, though.

I don’t know, I imagined everything white, penguins…

And it was all black dirt, it was full of military people,

the food was awful…

Anything new here?

- Mariana split up. - Really?

Yeah, finally.

Nachi won the bodybuilding title…

And I missed you like crazy.

And I found some amazing rocks to jump in the lake.

You can go in from 2 to 4, otherwise you’ll freeze to death,

suit and all.

Why do you tell me these things when you know how much they scare me?

It’s boring if I don’t.

What a pain in the ass!

Who is it?

How would I know who it is?

Well, check, then.

My mom.

What does she want?

She wants to sell dad’s Torino.

You can’t even begin to imagine what that car is like.

They’re coming from Necochea to see it.

My dad cured it from an evil eye.

The car, you mean?

- Haven’t I told you? - No.

He put a plate full of water on the hood…

and bubbles started coming out.

And that means that the car has the evil eye?

Oh, girl, you may have seen lots of Korean movies,

but you know nothing about popular knowledge.

I’ll kill my mom if she sells the car.

My dad loved it.

Hey, why don’t we go down there and rescue it?

You’ll get to see my house.

And your mother?

Uh huh.

My room looks exactly as it did 20 years ago.

Really?

You could see my posters, the ones I jerked off with

as a teenager.

- Posters for masturbating? - Mhmm.

Like what, for example?

Like Diana, from “V”.

- You’re fucking with me. - No, I’m not.

No, Diana kills me.

Diana kills me with that tight suit and those alien tits.

Well, my tits aren’t alien, but…

Shut up, your tits are beautiful.

I have a neoprene suit.

What did my fish do all this time we’ve been apart?

Your fish? Nothing.

I’m so great.

You’re terrible.

What about you?

Did you come up with a new movie?

Yeah.

Porn.

Really?

No…

- Really? - Yes.

- Oh, well… - What? It turns you on?

Maybe?

Come here.

You naughty girl.

- Are you ok? - Yeah, I’m already used to you.

Thanks.

Two tequilas.

Dykes.

Dyke.

What’s the matter with you?

What the fuck is going on here, huh?

The fags’ table, the dykes… What’s going on?

What are you saying?

- What are you doing, crazy bitch! - Stop, stop, stop.

We’re looking for this girl.

Oh, no, I don’t know her. I was leaving for practice

because otherwise I’ll waste the two hours I have and I’ll freeze.

I am an open-water champion. They sent my suit from Australia,

it’s great, warm, light. It cost me a fortune.

It’s not very comfortable for peeing, but hey.

- So, have you seen this girl? - No, officer. I told you.

I know there was trouble at that bar,

but we were there minding our own business,

I was a bit tipsy, my girlfriend had just arrived from abroad.

We were celebrating when this mess took place at the bar

with those horrible guys.

I defended myself, just a bit, though, even though I’m strong

due to my activity, but my girlfriend’s a bit weak,

and she was almost about to faint, and I was there with her.

But I heard some pounding,

it seems that some guys, some blonde foreigners

were having a drink.

They practiced self-defense. That’s something very well-known,

very usual in Europe, you know?

I was lucky enough to travel a lot, always swimming, you know?

For example, something very curious happens in Germany,

and it’s that everyone there practices aikido.

It’s a self-defense martial art.

And it seems like it’s not a big deal,

but you could end up with a broken arm.

And I wouldn’t want to see you without an arm, officer.

Could you hold this for me, please? One second, one second.

So I buy some time.

Cold, isn’t it?

There we go.

That’s it. Thanks! See you!

What do I narrate when I narrate porn?

Laying my body on the narrative,

let the narrative open its mouth,

let the narrative quench my voracity over my doomed body.

There is something about pleasure that is impossible to represent.

There is no way of creating verisimilitude.

We are end up losing ourselves for hours

in the forearm of a loved one,

letting the marks of that skin render us dizzy.

I want to lose my mind,

I want to lose it all,

I want my pussy to become a generous, mooching hole.

How to show this in a porno?

If there’s no trick and there’s pleasure,

sensuality, availability,

time, is it porn?

Or is pornography just the objectification of the bodies?

If the subjectivity of those bodies is not destroyed,

do they cease to belong in that genre?

We are on a wild quest,

we are looking for body and history all at once.

I’m searching while lost and forgotten by everyone.

Yeah, actually we used it to take the kids to school,

to Caleta Valdés.

Later they put up a school here and we stopped using it.

Yeah, the thing is that if it hasn’t been used throughout the winter,

some v-belt could have gotten rusty,

like that of the alternator, for example.

It looks cared for, though.

But the state of the timing belt…

If it got strangled, we’re gonna have to change it…

And deduct it from the price.

And how much would that be?

Lots of log shots for a porn movie, don’t you think so?

Our viewers are dozing off.

Don’t underestimate my fans.

Let’s switch, if you’re tired.

I love handling big things.

I can imagine.

So do I, including my girl.

I’m fine, thanks.

Is there an itinerary or do we just go with the flow?

We were thinking of going to Puerto Madryn.

But first I want to make a stop at Caleta, to visit a childhood friend.

- From Lobería? - Yes.

But when we were little, her family moved away and I never saw her again.

How do you know this one’s from Lobería?

Did she already tell you about her adventures as a girl-scout?

Yeah, she also told me she wants to take you to meet your mother-in-law.

Yeah, I’m scared to death.

Our mother-in-law.

Hey, could you move the camera? It appears in the shot.