Cinema
Thunder Among the Leaves
El trueno entre las hojas
Armando Bó · 1958
Synopsis
The film opens with an indigenous legend: thunder falls and stays among the leaves, the animals that eat them become violent, then the men who eat the animals. In a sawmill in the Paraguayan forest, the workers are ruthlessly exploited by their boss. The arrival of his wife, young and desirable, lays bare the tension built up over years of deprivation, and a strike is brewing in the barracks. A bathing scene in a lake has remained more famous than the rest of the film.
Context
The screenplay is by Augusto Roa Bastos, based on his short story La hija del ministro, and the film takes the title of the collection he had published in 1953. Filming took place in Asunción and in the department of Guairá, with local musicians. The film was released on 2 October 1958. For the bathing scene, Isabel Sarli, who had been promised a flesh-coloured swimsuit and a distant shot, was filmed with a telephoto lens without her knowledge. The film was a scandalous success, which broke records in Montevideo; critics saw in it a social drama in the line of Hugo del Carril and Mario Soffici.
Who it is for
Ninety-nine minutes, in Spanish and Guaraní. It is worth knowing that the obraje is a forestry camp where the workers lived in debt to their employer.
Prizes and reception
The first full nude in Argentine cinema, and the beginning of twenty years of joint work between its director and its lead performer.