Laura Citarella

(I La Aventura) Rafael inquires in the town where she was last seen. We learn that Laura was about to get a position in Rafael's department at the university of the capital and that she's a botanist. We also see that Ezequiel secretly reads a short farewell message left by Laura that he doesn't share with Rafael. They next visit a producer of orchids because Laura's job was missing one orchid to classify. Rafael mentions that they have to continue the search in America because that's where she was looking for the orchid.

(II La Parte de Ezequiel) A flashback shows Ezequiel listening to a radio broadcast of Laura. He is parked in front of the radio station. She comes out and he picks her up. During lunch they discuss the legend of Lady Godiva. He sounds distraught, she is lively. She tells him that she and her boyfriend Rafael are building a house. Ezequiel drives her around as she conducts her research in the fields. In the evening they have a drink together and she reveals a secret: she has discovered an old correspondence between two lovers.

(III) Laura tells Ezequiel (a flashback within a flashback) that she was researching female scientists for her radio program. She asked Susi the librarian for help. She ran into a book written by a Russian woman, Alexandra Kollontai, titled "Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman". Laura was fascinated that this Russian woman often used "we" instead of "I". Laura noticed that someone else had read that book in the past and made notes and marks that precisely matched her own observations. The first page of the book was signed "Carmen Zuna". Laura then realized that some pages were glued together and inside there was a love letter. The letter revealed a secret relationship between this Carmen and an Italian man named Paolo in 1962. Laura then checked the record of donations from the estate that owned Carmen's belongings and found more books, signed by Carmen, containing love letters, letters that were erotic in nature and addressed to Paolo in Italy. Laura classified them and ordered them chronologically so as to reconstruct the love story. Paolo wrote that he'd been married for ten years and had had many lovers. Laura shares the letters with Ezequiel who initially is indifferent but then gets more interested and eventually as obsessed as her by the tormented love story. Paolo writes desperate that he is losing his Carmen. Carmen summarizes it in a farewell letter that is identical to the one that we know Ezequiel received from Laura. America is actually a town where Laura was conducting her research.

(IV Adios) Back to the present, Rafael and Ezequiel arrive at America. The orchid producer knows nothing about Laura's whereabouts. Rafael asks Ezequiel why she borrowed his car, and Ezequiel explains that he usually picked her up at the radio station. Rafael is surprised to learn that Laura worked at a radio station. Ezequiel hides the story of the love letters to Rafael. Rafael is tired and Ezequiel drives when they get a flat tire. Ezequiel doesn't have the tools to change the tire. while they wait for road assistance, Rafael notices Laura's colorful backpack in the trunk of Ezequiel's car (the car that she borrowed) and finds inside Kollontai’s "Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman". They return to America and sleep at a hotel. Reading the book, Rafael concludes that Laura got scared of marrying him. Ezequiel listens annoyed Rafael's theory but still doesn't mention the love letters and then drives away dumping Rafael.

(V Los Caminos) Another flashback shows up Laura who is studying Carmen's love letters, obsessed that Carmen mentioned a Juana only once, and in a letter never sent. Ezequiel finds a picture of Carmen: she was a schoolteacher, and nobody at the school remembers her because she was a supply teacher.

(VI Carmen Zuna) Carmen was the teacher of Paolo's sons when he lived there. Ezequiel guesses that another man loved Carmen, a man whom Paolo liked two. Carmen then disappeared. But then Laura and Ezequiel realize that the third person is a woman. Ezequiel now imagines how this Carmen looked like. Carmen disappeared in 1968, and Laura realizes that Carmen was pregnant: the third person was their baby. The married Paolo received the news while he was in Italy. Carmen's letter stopped arriving (the flashback shows Paolo played by Ezequiel's actor). Finally Paolo received a letter from Carmen: the farewell letter. Carmen was leaving and didn't explain why and where. Carmen became a vagabond for months, pregnant, alone, until she reached the sea and the baby was born. Juana is the baby. Then the letters show that Juana suddenly lives in Italy with Paolo. That's a new enigma: how did that happen? Paolo kept leaving letters that Carmen never read. He never stopped thinking of Carmen. At this point Ezequiel kisses Laura and she lets him.

(VII La Parte de Rafael) Back to the present, Rafael tells Clara on the phone that Ezequiel dumped him in the middle of nowhere. Rafael visits Laura's boss Norma at Trenque Lauquen. Norma tells Rafael that Laura has a ticket to come back in two days. Norma reveals that Laura did her job very well, but at the end she became sloppy and unfriendly, taking advantage of both the department (who had to pay her hotel bill) and of Norma herself (who let her stay for free with her grandmother from whom Laura stole things). Laura had become rebellious and sloppy We learn that Ezequiel returned to the library all the books borrowed by Laura. Norma gives Rafael a tour of Trenque Lauquen. It sounds like Rafael knew very little of his girlfriend's life. Norma mentions the apparition of a monkey-like creature at the lake, but discounts it as a political trick to distract people from a development project. Rafael takes a bus to return to his university in the capital.

(Part II - VIII - La Parte de Juliana) Juliana is the famous journalist who runs the radio station of Trenque Lauquen. We see Laura arriving on a bicycle at the radio station. Juliana interviews Laura who is about to graduate as a biologist. Laura talks about the legend of Lady Godiva in 11th century England, another independent rebellious woman, and explains the origin of the English expression "Peeping Tom" for voyeurs (all the villagers shut their windows and stayed inside when Lady Godiva rode naked except a man called Tom who couldn't resist watching her, but Tom then went blind). It is at this point that Laura gets in the car with Ezequiel, so this happened just before the scene where he was listening to her broadcast.

(IX Mar de Novedades) Ezequiel is drinking alone at the bar after hours when Juliana joins him. Ezequiel thinks that he is telling Juliana a secret when he tells her that Laura didn't just go crazy, that she was investigating the love letters. Ezequiel never told anyone else about the love letters. Juliana reveals that Rafael called her so many times about Laura and she doesn't like him. Ezequiel asks Juliana to help him find Laura. Juliana listens skeptically and then answers that maybe Laura doesn't want to be found. Juliana invites Ezequiel to the radio station and makes him listen to a secret message that Laura recorded for Juliana alone. (It is not Ezequiel who has a secret to reveal to Juliana, but Juliana who has a secret to reveal to Ezequiel!). In this flashback within the flashback Laura tells Juliana that she has decided to leave town and asked not to be found. And then tells Juliana the whole story of the love letters, but also much more. The day she arrived in Trenque Lauquen, a taxi took Laura to the fields where she started her botanical research collecting plants. A strange woman appeared who asked her if she had found a specific yellow flower. Laura felt that this woman was a ghost. That woman didn't show up again for a while. Then Laura discovered Carmen's correspondence and started the investigation with Ezequiel. Laura also mentions that she and Ezequiel kissed. One day Laura found the yellow flowers and finally one day the ghost woman reappeared asking for the yellow flowers. Laura promised them and the strange woman mentioned that she would pick them up with her friend Romina at the hotel where Laura was staying. Laura was puzzled that this complete stranger knew her name and even knew where she was staying. In the morning Laura found out the identity of this woman because she saw her picture in the newspaper: this woman, Elisa, was a doctor who had just resigned from the mysterious case of the monkey-like lake creature.

(X El Caso de la Laguna) A flashback within the flashback explains what happened at the lake. This creature appeared and became big news. Laura was at the radio station when Juliana was reporting about the event. The information was that this was a savage child, and nobody could explain how the child survived. Elisa was appointed in charge of examining the creature. She had problems with the politicians and resigned after determining that the "child" was actually an animal, a sort of alligator. Laura listened distractedly to Juliana's reporting. After Elisa resigned, Laura didn't know what to do with the yellow flowers. Juliana and Ezequiel are still listening to the recording that Laura made for Juliana.

(XI Elisa) Laura then talks about her last day of work. She told the city council that she was not going to leave town even if her research and her funding had ended. Laura moved in with Norma hoping to run into Elisa again. Finally Laura found Elisa and followed her, and kept following her on her bicycle all the way to the house where Elisa lived. And so Laura found out that Elisa had a female housemate, Romina. Laura spied on them at night and guessed that they were taking care of the mysterious creature, the child-alligator. Laura was finally allowed into the house but denied permission to see the creature. Elisa was pregnant (like the disappeared Carmen was). Elisa finally explained that the "creature" was a mutant female being capable of breathing underwater. Elisa invited Laura over as a guest and Laura spent several days living with the two lesbians. They refused to talk with her about the creature. Laura discovered that they collected yellow flowers in a refrigerator. At night Laura could hear strange noises as the two women were working on a new room. Laura fell in love with Romina and Elisa. Elisa finally told Laura that the yellow flowers were the food of the creature. Laura was puzzled that Elisa was already looking for the yellow flowers before the creature appeared. One day the two women kicked Laura out of the house. Then Elisa called her asking her to procure a car. That's when Laura finally visited Ezequiel again and asked to borrow his car. The two women needed to flee the house because someone had reported them to the police. They met Laura at the gas station (where the movie began). Laura put her backpack in the trunk because it was green and the "creature" hated strong colors. Laura stopped at their house and found it abandoned. Laura finally saw the room that they had been preparing, which looked like a small jungle with complex watering and ventilation mechanisms. Laura also found a mini-laboratory to grow the yellow flowers. It looked like they were secretly engineering and feeding a mutant creature. (We never see the creature). Juliana and Ezequiel have been listening together. Juliana thinks they are supposed to leave Laura alone.