P-NDEJA | Omeleto

A nanny should be paid $400. Instead, her employer gives her $5.
P-NDEJA is used with permission from Sebastian Torres. Learn more at https://instagram.com/sebastiantor.
Graciela has been working as a nanny for a new family. Pay day has arrived, and her employer -- Pia, a wife and mother of a prosperous household -- will pay Graciela her monthly salary of 6,000 pesos.

But Graciela corrects her employer, saying the agreed-upon amount was 7,000 pesos. But Pia insists it was 7,000, which Graciela reluctantly complies with, trying to appease her boss. And so begins the process of bargaining and whittling away Graciela's pay for Sundays, breaks, food and housing and more -- setting up a strange game between servant and master.

Directed and written by Sebastian Torres, this short drama derives its power from how a single superbly-written scene can reveal layers of complexity within one conversation. Here, that exchange is a tense negotiation as Graciela awaits her pay from her employer Pia. The back-and-forth covers the nuts and bolts of figuring out that pay, deducting a flurry of charges, loans, ancillary costs and more from a seemingly simple lump sum -- and revealing the dynamics of power, silence and coercion that exist between classes.

Essentially a two-hander shot in one location in real-time, the film has a compressed narrative scope. It's photographed with a clean, gleaming look of prosperity and alternates a seemingly pared-down set of over-the-shoulder shots with wider shots of the modern, stylish kitchen. But the relative composure and simplicity of the visuals belie the social and psychological complexity of the exchange between employer and employee.

Pia drives the conversation, systematically asking Graciela if she remembers this agreement or that cost and methodically docking it from the initial sum. Pia says they don't pay for weekends; they're paying for Graciela's housing and transportation, which is coming out of her pay; they gave her this advance, which they're now recouping from her salary. Slowly, with each condition, Graciela's amount whittles itself down to a measly 90 pesos. It's tense and infuriating to watch, made all the more unbearable by the reasonable yet haughty way that Pia talks to Graciela -- and made even more painful by how Graciela gently protests and corrects at first, but then meekly agrees as she fears more and more of her pay will disappear -- or even lose her job altogether.

Actors Perla Villarello and Rosalia Cruz as Pia and Graciela, respectively, play this verbal game of cat-and-mouse with a subtlety that hints at certain emotions -- a cold, almost punishing tone by Pia, a growing resentment by Graciela -- lurking underneath the reasonable, polite words. It's not about the money, but an exercise in power and domination, especially in forcing compliance from the one being dominated.

Compelling and quietly riveting, P-NDEJA has a few unexpected developments, though they are not quite plot twists in the traditional sense. At first, it offers relief from watching a cruel situation come to its conclusion. But then it seems to confirm other, more fundamental conflicts in attitude, position and respect. It complicates the film's thematic resonance, making it not just about economics and money, but also about the ambivalent interdependence between the prosperous and those who serve them. The film's title means "stupid," but we begin to wonder who is truly clueless here.

Видео P-NDEJA | Omeleto канала Omeleto