Directed by Juan Pablo González | Written by González, Ilana Coleman, and Ana Isabel Fernández | 99 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Screening at Carbon Arc Cinema

A fascinating, if somewhat austere portrait of both a character and a vanishing way of life, Dos Estaciones — in English, Two Seasons — is a deliberate, gorgeously shot story about the stalwart, independent owner of a struggling tequila business in Jalisco, western Mexico.

Maria Garcia (Teresa Sánchez, impressive) is a respected, perhaps a little feared, boss of her operation. She observes the workers in her factory like an unsmiling general reviewing the troops. She wears her hair short, in a traditionally masculine way, and is fond of baggy khaki. She’s up to her eyeballs in debt, compounded by some kind of plague on the agave and the pressure of American industry investment in the tequila industry, poaching her workers.

She invites a younger woman, Rafaela (Rafaela Fuentes), who has experience in the tequila business to help manage her company. She can’t pay her a full wage but offers her food and board. Something between them clicks, a potential for happiness for Maria beyond the challenges of work and her family’s legacy.

The film also explores a parallel story, of Tatín (Tatín Vera), a trans woman and stylist who runs her own business in the town and is exploring a relationship with a local man. Though Maria is one of her customers, their stories only barely intersect. The filmmaker leaves it up to us to piece together why her story, like Maria’s, is important to tell.

At its core Dos Estaciones has to do with changing mores and changing gender roles in Mexican society — it blows holes in stereotypes. All the while it’s inviting its audience in to ask: why are we seeing this? What is the truth behind these characters’ lives?  The film favours an ambiguity in its storytelling, with a nonetheless subtle and effective dramatic heft.