| Pipa is a frustrating film. The movie wants to give the audience as little information as possible and as much irrelevant information as possible, just so we’re convinced that interesting things are going to happen soon. Also, in the as little information as possible category, Netflix fails to mention anywhere in the description that this is the third film in an Argentinian trilogy about the main character Pipa. | | 2022
Directed by: Alejandro Montiel
Screenplay by: Florencia Etcheves, Alejandro Montiel, Mili Roque Pitt
Starring: Luisana Lopilato
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The first two films Perdida (Lost) from 2018 and La corazonada (Intuition) from 2020 are both available on Netflix in most countries. By most accounts, Perdida is the best of the trilogy. I didn’t know about these films’ existence until after watching Pipa, but hopefully this will help in your viewing choices. I don’t think there’s significant information missing since Pipa’s backstory is very clear, but I suspect it’d be easier to connect with her if you’ve already watched her for 2-4 hours.
Pipa (Luisana Lopilato) is a former cop, now living a low-key life with her son on a ranch in a small town in Argentina. Then a dead girl is found on her property. She’s not a suspect because it looks like an accident and the police are more than happy to call it an accident and leave it at that. Pipa’s not so sure, and the audience definitely isn’t sure, since why would there even be a movie if there isn’t something else going on.
The dead girl was a servant at a party of rich family. I’m sure you have a few guesses already based solely on that sentence, and you’re probably right. The servants at the party were required to be young women, had to wear all black, and could not wear any jewellery or makeup. We only see bits and pieces of the party – part of the frustrating lack of information – but it’s enough to know how awful this rich family is.
The film also needed to hit us over the head with cliché stereotypes. The dead girl was a former drug addict, and in case you missed that point in the first minute, they repeat it every five minutes throughout the movie. She’s also aboriginal. And very unsurprising the cops are racist and don’t give a shit about a poor aboriginal girl. Meanwhile the rich family is connected to a racist and shitty politician in an upcoming election.
Pipa is a frustrating mix of a story that should be interesting but the film drags it out too much and throws in too many cliché themes to lose the audience long before there’s any justice.
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