The best Chany Mallo’s movies

After the end of the military dictatorship in Argentina in 1983, Floreal is released from prison. Instead of returning to his wife, he wanders through the night of Buenos Aires. He meets some people from his past–most of which are only imaginary–and remembers the events of his imprisonment.

The abuse endured by an indomitable prostitute does not kill her spirit in this drama based on short stories by Bernardo Kordon. Luisa (Susu Pecoraro) and her older sister Herminda (Ana Maria Picchio) are streetwalkers in Buenos Aires, but very different in their attitudes. Where Herminda is blithely frank about her job, Luisa is not as casual. On a trip home to bring her mother and little brother to the city (to help care for Herminda's baby), Luisa is viciously gang-raped by her former boyfriend and his cohorts -- but she endures. She eventually gets a job in a massage parlor but is fired when she nixes a client -- and she still endures, back on the streets again. Her sister scorns her, her new boyfriend dumps her, a dear friend is murdered -- yet Luisa never gives in to despair. Popular at the Argentine wickets, this drama has much going for it -- in particular a woman who is a victim but denies it with no problem at all.