Carnal Sins (2023)

A young man sits in darkness.

A sliver of light, a kiss from another boy, the shouts of a teenaged mob, and the rattling of chains: these keep Nino company before he is torn from his hiding spot and tossed, stomped and bloodied, into a truck bed filled with toads.

Later, in similar darkness, Nino watches his neighbors say that he’s a bad influence on the children and should be taken elsewhere. And in these same shadows, a priest tells him that God loves us all.

***

Carnal Sins, written and directed by Juan Sebastián Torales.

***

Somewhere in rural Argentina, Nino’s family quickly fills their newfound spaces.

The father, aided by a battalion of men wielding chainsaws and machetes, clears the encroaching forest: the townspeople say that one boy has already gone missing inside, taken by a monster. Meanwhile, Maria, the family’s housekeeper, performs a quieter ceremony of her own, praying to Mother Earth to find her Panchito.

The mother, aided by a neighbor, supervises repairs on their house. Her eyes linger on Malevo, one of the hired laborers, as she greases the wheels of local gossip. Meanwhile, her daughter Natalia keeps busy: icy stares at the dinner table for her brother, games of blind man’s bluff in the pool with plenty of friends to touch, and an urban legend whispered during a girls-only sleepover.

***

Almamula. The woman of the woods. Supposedly, she slept with everyone she knew, and now she takes anyone who commits impure acts. (Kissing cousins and other girls doesn’t count.)

***

And Nino joins a confirmation class: a new priest in a Beatles bowl cut lectures the children on spiritual references (Who do you appeal to?), warns his pubescent flock that all upcoming changes must be ignored (Walter’s hairy legs are shown as evidence), and illustrates how broken branches deserve the fire and not the light of God.

Amidst all this, Nino sits, watches, and tries not to listen. Walter says Almamula no longer calls to him since he started talking to God, unlike Panchito. Maria offers him a bouquet of rue for protection. Natalia bars Nino from the pool full of friends and reminds him of their grandmother’s painting tucked inside the shed.

***

A red-eyed figure stands amongst the blackened greens of the encroaching forest.

***

Almamula always watches. Her chains herald Panchito’s vanishing, and she looms over Nino’s dreams. One of him and Natalia’s boyfriend absconding into the woods (“Feel it. Say something, and I’ll kill you.”) and a confession to Maria over a glass of milk stained with blood (“How do I do it?” “Sin more.”). Soon after, Nino hangs a crucifix upon a knotted tree. When this fails, he tries his grandmother’s painting.

Violence follows. Barbed wire punctures Nino’s palm. The father’s gang of masked men tear down a woman’s home, her cries dimly heard by Natalia and her mother sunbathing by the pool. Malevo offers to treat Nino’s wounds, but the boy flees from his care. Mother and son debate carnal versus mortal sins. And Nino confesses that he cannot confirm himself.

He is a dead branch. 

***

He also touches himself while thinking of Christ.

***

And after?

All the same elements as before: darkness, water, nature, sound, and light.

But never forget about the darkness. It’s always been here, since the very beginning.

5 out of 5 sacs of blood.

—John K. Plaski