Melisa, filmmaker and character in The Pretty Ones is young, intelligent and funny, but also critical and ironic. She interviews her friends, reconstructs herself as a person using family photos and videos, and reflects on the images and expectations society has of young women.
Hans Christian Andersen's short story protagonist from The Little Match Girl, Robert Bresson's donkey from Au Hasard Balthazar, the relationship between a German guerrilla and an Argentinian pianist, and throughout, Helmut Lachenmann trying to stage an opera while the orchestra of the Teatro Colón is on strike. In the middle of all this, Marie and Walter try to provide for their young daughter with the small salary they make from playing music. While they rehearse ideas for the staging of Lachenman's opera, they work with people to which this ode to resistance is dedicated.