Firebreak (Cortafuego)

A FIREBREAK IS A STRIP OF LAND WITHOUT TREES IN A FOREST…

…OR ANYTHING OR ANYONE CAPABLE OF STOPPING THE SPREAD OF A WILDFIRE.

- Hello? Can you hear us? - Help.

- I don't want to talk about it. - He had a trip?

Appointment's in my calendar.

- I changed it to Monday. - Tell him to come over.

- - I wanna know why?

FIREBREAK

- We're here. Come on. - Let's go.

- Dani. Be good, help your mother. - Hey!

- Kids, come help, okay? - And you, Lide? You got it all?

- Here. - My suitcase.

- She's early. - Good morning, Mara.

- Hi. - I went ahead and took some photos

so I won't get in your way.

- Um, yeah. - All the furniture looks great.

Could raise it by 20 grand, yeah?

- Sure. Sure. Whatever's best, yeah. - Hey, hey.

Here's the keys. When you're done here, call me and I'll come grab 'em.

- Hello. - Thank you.

- I'm Luis, Mara's brother-in-law. - Oh, delightful.

Don't worry. It's very beautiful. It'll sell before you know it.

Done, all ready.

- Hurry! - I'm coming.

I'm thirsty.

- Wait, we have to pick everything up. - You do it. It's yours, right.

I'm telling you, I don't know how to use these.

Yeah, we gotta make like a donation box,

but it's just stuff that'll end up in the trash.

- Donation. Okay. - This one's also trash.

Dani, come help.

Mommy, Mommy, can we go for a walk?

Sweetie, Mommy has to clean right now.

- We can take a walk later. - But you better promise.

I promise.

Bye.

Dani, go play with your cousin.

- I'm sure you're gonna want these. - Yeah, these belonged to my folks.

- My brother loved this one. - They're yours.

Yeah.

Hey, Mara, this is practically new. Don't you wanna keep it?

No. No, my closets are full, so…

If you want it or even you, Luis.

But maybe don't, um, don't wear it around me.

You probably lost it.

- Let's play hide and seek. - I need to find it.

Mara's going to regret it when she cools off.

You already know my take.

But we can't just pretend he was never here, though.

Selling the house, trashing his clothes… He was your brother too.

She has to eventually deal with this.

Not deny it.

I think that's exactly what we're all dealing with right now, all of us.

Yeah.

Auntie.

- Look! Look! - Dani!

- Let's get the next box. - Okay, Mom, look.

Delicious. I was starving.

Why are you selling the house? I love it. I wouldn't give it away.

Yeah, but we have to. My dad died here, so…

Lide.

No, honey, that's not why we're selling.

Lide, baby.

We're selling the house because we're buying a…

Beautiful…

Very beautiful beach house.

- And next to our house. - Right.

So we can spend vacations together.

- Sounds nice. - We already talked about it, right?

- Yeah, but I really like the forest. - And we'll come back a lot.

- We'll find mushrooms. - Right, see?

We can look for the ones that are smooth and white on the outside.

- Those, we can eat. - Red ones.

- They've got white spots on the top. - No.

The neighbor? - Those don't grow here.

- Hi, Mara. - Santiago, hello.

- Yeah, you're well? Sure. - How are you? Come in.

- Hello. You're well? - Hi.

- Welcome. - Can I fix a plate?

- No worries. I made food, gotta work… - You sure?

The whole family is here. Well, mainly my brother-in-law,

- Luis, Gustavo's brother. - Hello.

- We met. - You met?

Elena. I don't think you met her.

- No. I've heard about you. - Dani.

- Hello, Dani. And Lide. - My nephew. And then… Lide.

Eh, I brought a small gift for Lide. So may I give it to her?

- It's a butterfly. Thanks. - Yeah. Yes, of course. Please do.

Hello, Lide. I brought you a… a gift.

It's a butterfly from the forest.

- Yeah, yeah. - What do you say, Lide?

- Thank you. - My pleasure.

- Don't mention it. - Thoughtful.

- I noticed you're packing up the house. - Oh, yeah, yes,

Uh, because I'm gonna sell it. We're not coming back here.

- Uh-huh. - Yeah, last day today. Um…

- Man. - Well, yeah.

- Well, if you need anything at all. Or... - All right.

- Thank you. - All right. Many thanks.

- Well, good luck. - Thanks.

- Take good care of yourself. - Nice to meet you.

- All right, bye. - Nice gifts.

Bye.

He seems really nice.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, I haven't really gotten to know him.

But Gustavo spent time with him.

He saw us load stuff all morning

and just now he manages to show up and offer to help.

Luis.

When we're finally driving away in the van,

he'll be like "You need any help?"

"I'm here with my patchouli and sandalwood oils to support you."

- Mom, is it snowing? - Mm.

Huh?

The fire has already destroyed more than a thousand acres of vegetation,

and several units of firefighters are still fighting the flames.

- The prolonged drought has taken its toll… - My God, a thousand acres.

It's contributed to the rapidly spreading flames today.

If we're lucky, winds won't change directions.

And officials expect to contain the forest fires before sundown.

There's also hope resting on the firebreak.

This firebreak opened just this summer.

- It should prevent fires from extending… - Mm, the firebreaks don't work.

That's all. Our correspondents back at the station will alert us on the latest.

We have to pick up and go.

- We can't trust a supposed failsafe. - Mommy.

- Firebreaks don't work. Let's go. - We can't spend the night?

- No. We're leaving. - Let's do this.

Me and Dani will empty the workshop, check bedrooms.

- We don't need to rush, maybe just start. - We might as well not leave it to chance.

- Maybe go home early. - Let's go home.

Let's leave soon. I'll leave the boxes unsealed.

- Come on. - Forget anything, we'll come back.

Why'd Uncle Gus make so many bear statues?

Because he really loved them. Your uncle was a mountain man.

We spent lots of holidays here.

Phew, he was upset when they disappeared.

Come on. Let's go. We'll take these with us.

Maybe we can pack these up. Or we can wait till we get home, too?

- Let's get these at least. - Pa.

- Yeah? - This is where it happened, right?

That's right. This is where he spent his last moments.

Makes more sense you and I clear the shop.

That way your aunt won't have to. Come on.

I'll take those. Wrap these later.

You good?

- Yeah. - Yeah? Good.

You can throw those out.

- - Is there a bag with more?

No.

I don't have any more.

Toss these. These go in the trash, too.

Lide, you got my cube? I want to play.

No. If I had it, I wouldn't give it to you.

- I wanna see, let me. - They're mine. I found it.

All yours!

- I never said that. - Always do what you want.

Where is my cube!

- I don't know! - You said you wouldn't tell me if you did.

- No! No! - Yes. Let me see them, Lide.

- I said, no! I found them, so no. - Give them.

Why are you the meanest?

If you don't like it, leave. This is my house.

It's not anymore, Lide.

We should move onto putting away what we can.

- Keep your stupid binoculars. -

And I guess I'll donate all of these. Unless you want one.

- Maybe? - Mommy, come here, look what I found.

I'll grab water bottles. We can explore.

We can't go out now, Lide, sweetie. There's a fire now. We have to hurry out.

- You promised. We're gonna say goodbye. - I'd love to do that today,

but now we can't, it's really dangerous to be outside.

- But you said we could do it. - Okay, but there's a fire, understand?

Is our house gonna burn down?

Nothing will burn down because it's far. It's real far, but we have to pack and go.

Mom, I'm not scared of the fire right now.

You said we could go to the forest and say goodbye to it together.

- But now there's an issue. - We're going to say goodbye together.

Don't start. I can't take this.

You promised we could say goodbye together.

- There's a fire, don't you get it? Stop! - I said I'm not scared.

Maybe I don't care that you don't care! Go clean your room!

- I knew you were a liar. - I said go to your room!

- I won't! - Go! I won't say it again.

Go.

- - Stop throwing things!

- Do you want me to talk to her? - No.

She's making it very difficult.

- Mara. - What?

What?