Northwestern Argentina, near the town of Salta, in a marshy area (“ciénaga” means muddy land). It is a torrid, humid summer. Mecha, a fifty-year-old alcoholic with four children and a husband who also drinks, spends her time at her farm, Mandragora, boozing, drinking and complaining to everyone. Mecha and her family are joined by her cousin Tali, a city-dweller who also has a husband and four children. While the kids go hunting in the woods, the adults putter around the house or by the swimming pool, which is covered with leaves and dirt. Mecha trips while pouring herself a drink and is wounded in the chest with shards of broken glass. Aside from this, life passes slowly in a suffocating atmosphere. One of Mecha’s daughters has a morbid relationship with an Indian servant and in the end an unsupervi- sed child is the victim of an accident.
