Sometimes, it takes something truly dramatic to really put us on a path towards fulfillment. A brush with death, or a relationship dissolving, or losing a job, or experiencing loss; any one of these things happening can jolt a person into seeing the world in a different way and changing their life. In Lucia Puenzo’s Los Impactados (Electrophilia in English) is a story of transformation and passion, a change from the mundane to the extraordinary, and how trauma can be the catalyst for all of this.
Los Impactados is the story of Ada, a farm veterinarian who awakens from a coma weeks after being struck by lightning. Her body bears the aftermath of the strike; dramatic red scars trace the path of the electricity down her chest, and a patch of her hair has gone white as a result. She finds she can sense any electric field and is plagued by a sense of isolation from her partner. Eventually, Ada finds herself drawn to a support group of lightning strike survivors, in particular their leader, an enigmatic doctor who himself has been struck not once but twice by lightning. In the midst of this newfound camaraderie, Ada embarks on a Cronenbergian journey of erotic introspection through electrophilia, a love of electricity, changing not just her appearance but her entire way of life.
The most fascinating aspect of Puenzo’s film is how effective it is in depicting the paradox of not realizing how boxed in you are until you’re standing outside that box. Like the proverbial cave dweller emerging into the sun in Plato’s allegory, Ada soon can’t get enough of her new life, chasing lightning storms with her new friends and engaging in a passionate extramarital affair. It’s a bit cliched but it feels almost as if Ada needed to almost die to truly live. At the same time, Puenzo also highlights how it can take stepping outside of the box entirely to fully appreciate how good that box might be, with Ada’s realization of where her happiness lies being just as monumental as the lightning strike.
Mariania di Girolama is impressive as Ada, a woman on a journey from a familiar here to some unknown there. She truly imbues the character with a hesitancy that dissolves as the film goes on until she wholly embraces the new reality of who she is. German Palacios as the enigmatic Juan, the leader of the support group Ada finds herself in, gives his character a quiet haunted quality, almost like an addict chasing the perfect high. He is driven to pursue something he knows he may never attain, and there’s a tragic loneliness to his character that is perfectly in tune with Ada and what’s experiencing.
Los Impactados is a compelling story of self-discovery and renewal, of self-destruction to understood who we really are. Erotic and quite literally electrifying, it’s a deeply rewarding experience and a tremendously satisfying piece of cinema.
