The Headless Woman

Lucrecia Martel
2008

It's always a treat when there's a film in theaters from Argentine arthouse star Lucrecia Martel. Her sophomore outing "The Holy Girl" (2004) was enigmatic in extreme with gorgeous camera work and a stylistic sensibility somewhat akin to the Dardennes, and I have yet to see her first feature "La Cienaga" (2001), but am certainly looking forward to it. Her latest is a another distant meditation on character and experience, but this time Martel uses her narrative to make a political statement. Bottle blonde Vero is the dizzying epitome of Argentine upper class complacency, floating through life in a luxury four-wheeler, casually carrying on an affair, and comforting a senile relative fill her days. A hit and run incident with what may be a dog, or child, furthers Vero's opaque and disassociated state. Martel and actress Maria Onetto play a crafty game of cat and mouse with Vero's mental state with an underlying waxing and waning of anxiety. The indictment of the wealth is a strong subtext here with a leisurely bunch of well to do's. Their decadence is expressed in financial interactions with poorer dark skinned shopkeepers and in Vero's presumably incestuous affair. For all it's allegorical oomph though, I still prefer the visual beauty and simplicity of "The Holy Girl" (2004). Looking forward to more Martel.