When the Mother Fails: Maternal Ravage and the Psychoanalytic Traces of Femininity in La Quietude

This study aims to offer a psychoanalytic analysis of Pablo Trapero’s La Quietude (2018) by focusing on the mother-daughter relationship. The character dynamics and narrative structure of the film are examined through Freud’s theory of castration, Lacan’s concept of ravage, and Winnicott’s notion of the “good enough mother.” The presence of a mother who is physically there but functionally absent is discussed in relation to its effects on the daughter’s identity formation and feminine subjectivity. In addition, the film’s representations of sibling rivalry, unresolved oedipal attachments, and failures in maternal identification are interpreted within the framework of psychoanalytic theory. The analysis concludes that maternal devastation functions not only as a personal trauma but also as a structural rupture in the intergenerational transmission of feminine knowledge and desire. Keywords: Maternal ravage, Mother-daughter relationship, Maternal failure, Symbolic transmission, Psychoanalytic film analysis