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Synopsis

Cenizas del Paraíso (1997) begins with the mysterious death of a respected judge, Costa Makantasis, and the suspected murder of a beautiful young girl, Ana, who is the daughter of a powerful businessman. When all three of Costa’s sons, including Ana’s boyfriend, confess to the murder, Judge Beatriz Teller must decide who is telling the truth.

While Argentina has always been one of the leading South American countries in film and television production, the 1990s were one of the least productive eras in its history, in no small part, due to the new policies of President Carlos Menem. Menem took power in 1989 and the following year, he established a new Plan Federal de Cultura, which among other things strove to “rationalize and modernize, on the basis of economy and efficiency standards, the administration of the INC, so that the budgetary resources are destined in broadly majority terms to the promotion of the cinematographic activity in its different areas.” In other words, cinema was not going to be treated like the popular art form that it was, but a national industry just like any other. This meant a huge cut to state funding of film institutions. As film historian Tamara Falicov put it, “The emphasis on commercial culture over unique, auteur-inspired work led critics to call the cultural policy of the Menem administration the culture of the shopping mall.”

In creating his perfect neoliberal economy that didn’t depend upon the whims of ornery artists but the demands of the worldwide economy, Menem effectively handicapped Argentina’s cinema and the Argentine public lost interest in seeing their own stories on screen. While in 1986, Argentine productions attracted 21.54% of the national audience, they only attracted 3.86% by 1990. Argentine cinema production and consumption also reached historically low records with 12 films released in 1990 and continued throughout the decade. Even through this cinematic wilderness, one director was able to create commercially and critically successful movies again and again and again. By the time Cenizas del Paraíso was released in 1997, director Marcelo Piñeyro had already directed two distinctly Argentine and incredibly successful films. 

In his first Goya-winning film, Piñeyro creates a story that doesn’t simply entertain with its mystery and romance but asks questions about justice and truth at a very important time for Argentina. Including a stellar cast of legendary Argentine actors including Hector Alterio, Cecilia Roth, Leonardo Sbaraglia, and Leticia Bredice, who made a name for herself in her role as the enigmatic and seductive Ana, Cenizas del Paraíso flits from different perspectives to create a Rashomon effect that asks its audience to decide for themselves, what is fair and right. From the start, we don’t know what to think about the Makantasis family. Are they a perfect image of middle-class joy or are these three young men prisoners to their father’s expectations? To Ana’s father, it’s clear that her relationship with Alejandro was not a normal courtship, and she was held hostage by all of them. However, according to the maid, Ana couldn’t wait to marry the whole family, including Costas, and his two other sons, Nico and Pablo.

In fact, the only thing that seems clear about Ana’s relationship with the Makantasis family is that it comes from a deep-seated need of hers to find a stable, domestic home, unlike the one she grew up in. When Ana was younger, a disastrous mistake led her father to believe that she wanted him to have sole custody, tearing her away from her mother forever. Now in her twenties, her father betrays her trust again and again, by taking her former best friend as a wife. The Makantasis family represents the hope of finally belonging and being loved, maybe even too much. Filled with stereotypically strong Greek passion, the brothers perform typical Greek dances for their father’s birthday, with each one seemingly participating in a macho contest trying to outdo the other with a more acrobatic move. 

Ana’s entrance interrupts their masculine harmony. Though she’s told she can’t perform the dance because women are only supposed to admire the men, she practices on her own, much to Nico, Alejandro’s older brother’s surprise and excitement. When he joins her practice session this Greek dance turns into a tangled-up Tango of sorts that can only lead to one thing. When they find themselves alone in a field at the family’s country estate, it is inevitable that the two get together. In Ana’s search for peace and belonging, she does away with their own. But does that make her a villain? Who is responsible for this disharmony? It’s a question that was important to most Argentines, except Carlos Menem, who passed a series of decrees during his first year in the presidency which pardoned civilians and military personnel who committed crimes during the dictatorship. In this enmeshed story of family and betrayal, Piñeyro addresses these very concerns.

In a story where everyone holds some blame but is also a victim of larger circumstances, who goes to jail? Before the film reaches its close, each of the three brothers has a motive for the murder. Pablo did the clean-up, Nico is the only one who knows where the murder weapon is, and Alejandro is the scorned boyfriend who tried to kill himself from the guilt. They all aided in her death, but the real person who is guilty of all this violence is someone with absolutely no blood on his hands: Ana’s father, Francisco Muro. Her relationship with the Makantasis family led her to stumble on Costa’s own investigation of her father, a man he suspected of dubious and even fatal business dealings. Though Ana doubts Costa’s claims, she soon realizes he is right, but it is too late. Her father’s men have already thrown Costa off the roof of the court building for everyone to see, leading Pablo to reveal Ana’s affair with Nico to everyone.

These series of discoveries and misunderstandings ultimately lead to Ana’s death, but not the way you’d think. Ana tries to return to Alejandro’s room, where he is now cutting off all the decorations they had put up together. In a moment of grief, Ana pushes herself into his knife, accepting her fate for having destroyed his perfect family, whether she meant to or not. In the end, the fall everyone thought was a suicide was a murder and Ana’s death was a suicide witnessed by Alejandro, staged by Nico, and cleaned up by Pablo. Their series of lies to protect one another appear to do nothing but damn all of them while Muro who was the mastermind of the violence throughout Ana’s life will never face the courts.

Though Piñeyro gives his audience access to these memories, it is unclear as to whether Beatriz Teller, the judge in this case, is aware of all the facts and what she will do. As she later states, “haga lo que haga, no sera justicia” or “do whatever you want, it won’t be justice.” In a time when courts were unable to prosecute the villains of the previous decades, Teller knows that men like Muro will never see the inside of a prison cell, while these brothers who once represented the promise of a new Argentina will have their lives destroyed, without a father, without hope, and without freedom.