Carne 1991

An unnamed horse butcher Butcher runs his own shop and cares for his mute daughter Cynthia after his wife leaves him. He tries to balance work, responsibility, and a bond that remains intense and often stifling. Even as she becomes a teenager, he continues to wash her like a baby, clinging to routines that keep her close while blurring boundaries and stirring a dangerous ache inside him.

On the day of Cynthia’s first menstruation, the Butcher misreads the situation and believes she has been raped by a worker. He immediately searches for the man he suspects, driven by a mix of fear, anger, and protective instinct. The pursuit ends in tragedy when he attacks and cripples an innocent worker by stabbing him in the mouth. He is jailed for the assault and is forced to sell not only his shop but also his apartment to cope with the consequences.

Even after leaving prison, the trauma of his time behind bars—along with the unsettling dynamics of a close, coercive environment—haunts him as he tries to reconnect with his daughter, who has ended up in a mental hospital. He then works for a woman who runs a cafeteria, and a relationship develops between them, a situation he grows to hate. She becomes pregnant, adding another layer of strain and disappointment to his fractured life.

At last, he does manage to see his daughter at the mental hospital, but he leaves in frustration, unable to fix what has happened or to salvage a sense of purpose. The story follows a man trapped in a cycle of obsession, misinterpretation, and distance, tracing how love, guilt, and circumstance push families to their breaking points.