When Rosa is expected to hand her boss the suntan lotion on a deer hunt, this feels like a sign. Don Reynaldo’s ranch is about to celebrate its farm anniversary, but this passionate hunter’s image is built on a lie. And so, here in the countryside, where men are men, employees are grateful subjects and women diligently and docilely hold it all together, cracks begin to appear in the social life of this microcosm. Ordered around day in and day out, unnoticed by those in her class-conscious surroundings, the menial Rosa gradually becomes an agent of change. While Don Reynaldo’s extended family contorts itself in a bid to save the old order, men begin to arrive at the farm in pickup trucks. Their appearance at the feast and a threat are enough to make the ageing patriarch fear for his life and his family – and force him to act. All that passes is observed by the animals who, either as trophies on the wall or as livestock out to pasture, seem to sense the end of an old hegemony. With a keen sense of how to deploy omens that herald change, Alejandra Márquez Abella portrays an epochal shift in rural Mexico – as seen by characters who are usually relegated to passive supporting roles.　　When Rosa is expected to hand her boss the suntan lotion on a deer hunt, this feels like a sign. D