Money, Love and Survival: Melodrama and Modernity in the Films of Vlasta Lah

Starting Tuesday, March 17, the Sala Leopoldo Lugones at the Teatro San Martín (Av. Corrientes 1530) will host a special retrospective devoted to the two feature films directed by Argentine filmmaker Vlasta Lah. A pioneering figure in the country’s cinema history, Lah was the first woman to direct a sound feature film in Argentina. The program includes five screenings each of Las furias (1960) and Las modelos (1963), the only two features Lah directed. Both films will be presented in recently restored versions carried out by the Fundación GOTIKA using archival prints preserved at Cinemateca Argentina.

The screenings are organized by the Complejo Teatral de Buenos Aires, part of the city’s Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with Cinemateca Argentina. Taken together, the two films offer a fascinating glimpse into how Argentine cinema portrayed women, ambition, money, and romance during a moment of cultural transition between the 1950s and the more modern sensibilities of the 1960s.

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Las furias (1960)

The first—and best known—of Lah’s films is also the one most indebted to the traditions of earlier decades. Based on a play by Enrique Suárez de Deza, Las furias centers on five women locked in an escalating web of rivalries, resentments, and emotional cruelty, most of them tied in some way to men.

The ensemble cast includes Mecha Ortiz, Olga Zubarry, Elsa Daniel, Aída Luz and Alba Mujica—although the film curiously avoids identifying their characters by name. Most of the action takes place inside a once-elegant but now declining Buenos Aires mansion where a domineering mother (Ortiz) lives with her daughter-in-law (Luz), her son (who is never actually there), her granddaughter (Daniel), and another daughter (Mujica), described in the parlance of the time as a “spinster.” Outside the house lurks the son’s wealthy and independent mistress (Zubarry).

The drama unfolds over the course of a few days and revolves around the family’s precarious financial situation. Despite occupying an enormous house, they appear to depend almost entirely on the son’s salary. This economic pressure shapes every relationship in the household, and the mother is its principal enforcer. Devoted to her son and indulgent toward her arrogant granddaughter, she treats both her daughter-in-law and her older daughter with contempt.

She accuses the daughter-in-law of refusing to “free” her son so he can live with his mistress—whose wealth she views with obvious interest. Meanwhile, she pressures her granddaughter to find a rich suitor who might rescue the family financially. The older daughter, perpetually unlucky in love, becomes the frequent target of her mother’s cruelty, which in turn fuels her own erratic behavior. She quarrels constantly with her sharp-tongued niece, steals her dress, and even attempts to steal her boyfriend.

Throughout the film, this small group competes and wounds each other with remarkable cruelty. While Las furias hints that the absent son—whose artistic ambitions are suggested by his mediocre paintings—is hardly the extraordinary figure his mother imagines, the film nonetheless directs most of its critical gaze toward the women, who appear eager to take advantage of him. Once they learn he has a wealthy lover, several begin scheming about how they might benefit from the situation.

A clear division emerges between the calculating mother and granddaughter on one side and the more sentimental daughter-in-law and sister on the other. Beneath this dynamic lies a revealing portrait of the era’s social logic: the mother’s mission is to protect and elevate her only son, while the women around him struggle to secure their own survival.

Seen today, it is difficult to describe Las furias as a feminist film in the modern sense. Yet within its historical context, the perspective becomes more complex. Lah’s gaze toward her female characters is unsparing—critical, almost cynical—and occasionally harsh. The script certainly relies on familiar clichés about women’s behavior, but its blunt honesty about economic dependency and emotional manipulation remains striking.

The film’s generational tension also hints at changing attitudes toward male dependence. In the characters played by Elsa Daniel and especially Olga Zubarry, both the screenplay and the director seem to suggest that the 1960s may bring a new perspective: love matters less than financial security. Social status or political connections mean little. What counts is money.

Stylistically, Las furias remains close to classical melodrama, with theatrical roots evident in both structure and performance. The emotional climax centers on the “spinster” daughter’s desperate attempt to provoke her mother’s attention after a lifetime of neglect. Her act of family betrayal produces the film’s most sexually charged and visually daring moment: advancing toward the camera with defiant intensity during a nocturnal confrontation, she breaks any lingering sense of familial loyalty.

The bitter irony is that the act barely matters to her niece, whose real disappointment is far more trivial: she never got the chance to debut her new dress.

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Las modelos (1963)

Less seen than Las furias, Lah’s second feature today feels more accomplished and far closer to the spirit of its era. While the earlier film unfolds largely within a single house, Las modelos ventures out into the streets, cafés, nightclubs, and workplaces of a Buenos Aires gradually entering the modern world of the 1960s—while still clinging to older social conventions.

The story follows two young women from modest backgrounds, Ana (Greta Ibsen) and Sonia (Mercedes Alberti), who make a living as fashion models presenting haute couture designs for wealthy clients. They spend their days displaying luxurious dresses created by a prominent designer named Pierre—garments they themselves could never afford but must wear for hours while parading them before high-society customers.

Despite the glamour surrounding their work, their main concern is finding a partner—preferably a wealthy one. Ana wavers between an older businessman and a younger man named Luis, played by the future ufologist Fabio Zerpa, whom she meets at a high-society gathering. Sonia, meanwhile, is involved with Carlos, a married businessman, while also attracting the interest of Pierre, whose intentions may be more personal than professional—particularly since he seems eager to conceal the fact that he is “not a normal man,” as the dialogue coyly suggests.

The film chronicles the women’s daily lives: nights out with friends and suitors, workplace pressures, romantic tensions, and the constant effort to secure a relationship that might improve their social and financial situation. As in Las furias, the characters are acutely aware that relationships with men often involve economic calculation as much as romance. The difference here is that the protagonists recognize another uncomfortable truth: the men around them seem to value them primarily for their appearance rather than as potential partners.

In some cases that assumption proves accurate; in others, the situation becomes more complicated.

Where Las furias feels rooted in an earlier cinematic tradition, Las modelos captures the texture of its moment with far greater immediacy. The nightlife of Buenos Aires, youthful parties, the local entertainment scene, and the city’s recognizable streets all become part of the narrative. A memorable scene involving an actress and her producer shopping for dresses offers a particularly vivid glimpse into the world of show business.

Visually, the film is also more adventurous. Lah experiments with unusual camera angles, extensive location shooting, and a slightly looser narrative structure. The dialogue remains somewhat formal, but less rigid than in her debut. Its largely nonprofessional cast—both actresses were real-life models—and episodic storytelling may explain why Las modelos never achieved the same reputation as Las furias. Yet today it feels more contemporary, more alive, and more revealing.

The film also loosens some of the ideological constraints present in Lah’s first feature. Although the search for a partner still dominates the protagonists’ ambitions, the narrative acknowledges with unusual frankness that economic convenience often outweighs romantic ideals. In both of Lah’s films, men believe they remain the central figures in these women’s lives.

In reality, more often than not, they are simply the financiers.

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