" Transitory Insanity" Sinopsis

Sinopsis



Clara, is a young Eight-Teen year old girl who is in jail in Leon for the pressumed murder of her stepfather, Jacinto.She was sexually abused since she was Six years old ,and forced to live as a young prostitute.

From the jail through flashbacks she reflects about her life,how bad her mother treated her,and the life she was forced to live in.Jacinto comes to her mind pretty often,she remembers all the days he raped her,and took away the freedom ,and happiness a young girl is supposed to have.She remembered all the men that used her,like the farmer who loved her as a her own “daughter”.At night,she gets mad because she didnt stand up for herself ,for letting Jacinto ,and the other men rape her.She will feel useless if she declares herself with “Transitory Insasity” because she wont acomplish her goal ,and show other people than when these sort of problems happen you should move on and fight for yourself.

The movie starts with the end ,when the Police take Clara ,and send her to jail.Now the movie moves on from past to present through Claras flashbacks.There are various elements that are used in the story for her to remember,for example,Clara always counted the tiles of the roof when she was being raped by her stepfather. In jail she also counted the bars in her window... One,two,three,four,five.When she left school she counted the black ,and white squares on the floor,carefully trying not to step the black ones,at the end of the movie she does the same,when she leaves the jail she is inmediatly attracted to the squares on the sidewalk,but this time she was only stepping on the white squares.

The courtains in her room are also an element that is used in the movie to join the past with the present.

At the begining of the movie we can see a room with two beds ,separated by a transparent courtain,in one bed Jacinto is raping Sofia brutally,and in the bed...Clara is all alone.Jacinto pases to the other bed,at first he tells Clara that everyting is going to be ok,while he calmy touches her entire,virgin body.

Another important symbol in the movie is the blood in the beggining ,Clara is bathed in Jacintos blood.When she is being taken to jail she tries to wash away the blood,but she finds it very hard thanks to her anger and she faints.Clara is pregnate and has an abortion where she still has Jacinto blood,but also part from her dead child.She feels stained,dirty with Jacintos blood that follows her whereever she goes,but phisycally she managed to wash it away.

All the symbols are repeated in the past as in the present.

The present takes part in the jail where she converses with her lawyer and family. Through the talks both her,lawyer,and family reach to the conclusion that she ,and her mother have been victims of teh circumstances,there is a person to blame ,Jacinto, but there are also other people guilty and victims inside the story.

Clara is arranged to be comdemned unjustly and suffer the consequences of jail for life,but if this act helps other women that have suffered the same humiliation or at least help some women who are about to be raped.She wants to prove that she killed Jacinto with premeditation,that she wanted to take revenge of the irreparable damage in her life , and she feels if she declares herself with “Transitory Insanity” she would take a huge amount of weight from her shoulders for something she considers heroic.The problem is if she holds her position it will take her to sentece a could not help other women as she wishes.

At this moment in the movie, Claras case has becomed a national discussion.People of all types have talked in the media, and for this reason she feels obligated to do “something positive” with her life and show an example of courage by taking full responsibility towards Jacintos death.

In jail, Clara receives an unexpected visit of a lawyer that results to be Ramiro,an old friend. Ramiro wants to convinse Clara that if she wants to be an example for many women she cannot declare herself guilty.Ramiro thinks that its better for Clara to declare herself with “Intrasitory Insanity”,nevertheless at the end of the movie in the court room,Morena appears, her best friend when she was a child.Morena declares that she saw everything the day that Jacinto died.She said that when Clara was trying to get rid of Jacinto,Jacinto accidentaly stabed himself with the knife Clara had in her hand.Now this way Clara left unguilty because it was “self-defense”.

She received another important visit,this time her Aunt Nelly came.The story that Aunt Nelly tells Clara changes the perspective she saw her mother and the world: She never knew that she had relatives living close to her,neither who her dad was...the one she never met.Aunt Nelly and Clara talk for hours,thanks to this conversation she knew more things about her family: Aunt Nelly told Clara that she was her moms twins.When Sofia died,her mother died at birth,and her father gave Sofia all the blame.Thanks to that,Sofia grew up in a world without love and she escaped with a truckdriver named Jacinto.Now Clara got the bad news,and found out that Jacinto was her father.

Blasting into tears,Clara cried alone in her cell all alone for the entire night.

Clara meats Adela, a cop who works at the jail who takes interest in Clara,because her past is very similar to Claras.She married a Sandinista Commander.She has a girl with this man, and she undestands women who have pased what Clara is passing right now.

Adela becomes a real close friend of Clara throughout her life in jail.

Clara is alone in her cell,she smokes nervously, and the smoke makes her remember her mom,her twelve years ago and her stepfather Jacinto in the stripclub...Clara is in her moms lap,she is smoking,she falls asleep,the cigar falls in her pelvis and her dress catches fire...Jacinto undresses Clara,puts some cream on her wounds,but takes advantage and rapes her,her screaming are confused with the ones of the burn.

The stripclub is full of prostitutes an clients, the atmosphere is full of smoke and you can hear the “ranchera” music coming from a jukebox.Clara exels from the other women thanks to her beauty an dher simplicity.Morena,her best friend is confident and sticks to her and watches Jacinto very carefully. Sofia,Claras mother, starts to laugh without stoping,it was if she was almost screaming,the cocaine, and the alcohol were giving Sofia its effects.In one of those attempts Sofia falls to the floor dead,nobody notices,only Clara that runs to her mother,hugs her, and cries.At the funeral, Jacinto takes Clara to his office and rapes her...again, and again.From now on, Clara oficially becomes Jacintos new wife,and he makes her a prostitue for other clients.

In jail,Ramiro enters Claras cell with a bunch of newspapers,he is very content with all the people who are suppoting her. Even the group of Women against Violence is with her,the entire town is with her,It is necessary to take advantage of the situation and blame it on your mother,anyway she is dead...Ramiro tris to touch Clara y he finds a terrible reaction in Clara, who is very sensitive at the time.Shes pregnant of her own father product of all type of violations!

Clara is taken to the infirmary where she loses alot of blood due to the abortion.In her delirium she confuses the present with the past,the death of her mother repeats itself, with a bitter face, without her nice smile Jacinto and the clients become deformed and turn around her, the laughter become deafening sounds,until we see her walking alone through the streets of Leon.

In a sunny day, Clara decides to go for a walk and arrives at a park full of kids, trees and specially, happiness. She looks happy for the first time, a boy approaches to Clara, they are playing “Hide and Seek” , she wants to play with them,but she is rejected by the mothers...
She keeps on walking and finds a church,and smells an incense aroma.She hears an organ music,she enters and observes the choir singing a “purisima” song.

Clara is petrifiedwhile she hears the music,eveyone leaves the church, and she is left alone. A young priest sees her, and starts talking to her. They talk about Claras harsh life while they walk through the entire city.The priest tells her to leave that horrible life, it doesnt mean that if she was born in that atmosphere she has to keep on living like that forever,and he knows a place in Dolores where some priest can help her.

Clara accepts the priest offer and goes back to the stripclub to get her belongings ,when she enters her room Jacinto who is drunk is waiting for her,he wants to rape her,a fight starts.. at the endss he dies with a knife close to his heart.

We return to the jail,Clara is still in the infirmary and she has a delirious dream of her and her mother in a hill full of flowers,they are very happy.

Finally she has been able to find her own reality, the one of her mother and somehow to obtain a little peace.

Meanwhile the jury is declaring Clara innocent of all fault because Jacinth died in a struggle and the fight was considered as “self-defense”.

Ramiro takes the control of the judgment…Clara met Ramiro at the stripclub. Ramiros dad wants Clara to make Ramiro a man and have sex with him. In the room Ramiro already explained the situation to Clara, they talk, dance and become close friends.

Ramiro is studying laws in Leon but his passion is music and has a set where he touches the piano. Clara goes to a concert in Leon where Ramiros band appears .

For the first time Clara feels like a young person, integrated to a group and in a free situation where she expresses her feelings. Ramiro and his friends go away after the concert to Poneloya, a beach near Leon and Clara experiments for the first time what is to have sex with someone she loves.
In a bonfire where they all sing and declaim poems, Clara finds out that Ramiro is going to another country to finish his studies.

When Ramiro returns graduated and reads about Claras case through the newspaper, he goes to the jail and he obtains a favorable resolution for Clara. In the newpaper interviews of all type,some people think that “what the girl did was wrong” ,and some people said “the man deserved it”.

Within all the noise of people, Ramiro responds in a professional way to all the case, the laws applied, the tests of witnesses and that Morena saw where it is clear that Jacinto was stabbed by the knife in the struggle.

At this moment Clara is very weak of health, does not have desire to live, feels that her life finishes, that It is the moment to arrive at a end where only the important thing is to reach a happy encounter with her mother. To vindicate that her mother, Sofía, were product of a deceit and that she also was part of all this plot, gives a freedom sense him to assume its own life and to follow ahead.

It is at this moment that Clara assumes her responsibility before the facts, becomes aware from her past and she pardons her mother. It is the moment of the liberation, and to assume the future with hope. Ramiro is with her and when he is giving her the good news in court, he provides Clara with more strenght.

In the end Clara leaves the jail where she waits for her friends, including Ramiro.She jumps bricks of two in two as she were accustomed to do when she was a girl, this way again mix images of the past with the present.

In this film you can see a real situation, that happens everywhere in the world in this case it is in Leon, Nicaragua, and the characters act as their nature, but it is a story that could happen in any place, and at any time, because in all the parts of the world there are defenseless people who are manipulated, or by economic or emotional reasons. The situation is always the same, the smaller ones are used to satisfy desire with others and a legislative apparatus, that not this based on but the defenseless ones. In the life always there is hope and this film gives one, that in spite of all the people we have the possibility of leaving in front of the adverse circumstances.

Clara is the living example of the people who survive the worst circumstances.