A comment on Una Escuela de Cerro Hueso
Ema’s family stands out. They have white skin and are used to the life in a big city. Ema, the six-year-old dauthter, is not like the other children in her new school. Those who have read the film description already know: Ema has autism. A developmental disorder that is often revealed in social interaction and communication. However, this information is withheld from the audience until the last scene. Only then the autism is mentioned. In that way, director Betania Cappato creates an unprejudiced space in which the viewers can experience Ema’s everyday life without any bias concerning her condition.
Una Escuela de Cerro Hueso consists almost fragmentarily of segments, always separated by a few seconds of black screen: Ema in class, Ema at home, Ema’s parents. They seem like associative thoughts that Cappato remembers from her own childhood. In the end it is explained that the film is autobiographical and based on the life of the director’s autistic brother. Because of his diagnosis he was rejected from 17 schools in Argentina, the 18th finally accepted him as a student. The dedication of the teachers helped him to connect with the other children. After one year he finally spoke for the first time.
A parallel that is also found in Ema. She, too, does not speak. Her teachers also helped her to focus on the class by guiding her gently but firmly back to the other children every time she would get distracted. Her classmates are kind to Ema welcoming her into their class. Perhaps an almost too dreamy version of reality. Not a single argument, not a single bad word. Ema even lets the other children put little stickers on her face; but when her mother tries to remove them in the evening she would resist her touch. Her mother secretly cuts Emas fingernails when she is asleep.
The black screen after each association makes the new scene seem much more intense. They usually start with a sound: hands scratching on the pan while washing dishes, water flowing, the sponge squeaking. The wind rustles through the lush green leaves of a willow. Rubber boots splash through muddy puddles.
In two scenes, the close bond between Ema and her parents becomes particularly clear – even if it is always a non-verbal way. In the first, Ema and her father sit at the dinner table, nibbling on roasted pumpkin. Whenever her father slurps, Ema slurps; whenever he tilts his head, so does she. It’s their own way of communicating with each other.
In another scene, Ema’s parents show her how to pet a foal. With careful movements, they guide their daughter’s little hand up and down. Ema seems happy, the family even hugs each other, and her mother cries with joy. At the end of the film, that scene is brought up again when a villager notices that the family’s old horse is pregnant. It is unclear if the first scene was a glimpse into the future or if it was about a different horse.
Ema’s parents are also trying to be a part of the new village. Her mother tries to find the reason for the fish dying in the small village, her father is involved in a local gardening project. However, these storylines are not developed further.
Ema changes noticeably in the course of the film. She physically becomes closer with her parents and even finds a good friend in her classmate Irene. Una Escuela de Cerro Hueso is a quiet film that manages to work without the protagonist’s voice and perhaps for that very reason remains a loud memory.
