Film Forum

(2004) “Martel’s follow up to La Ciénaga is again set in that provincial town, largely at a hotel where a conference of ear, nose, and throat specialists is taking place. One doctor (Belloso) catches the attention of the divorcee (Morán) who runs the place. What she doesn’t realize is that, in a crowd gathered to watch a musician in the street, he’s already pressed himself up against her sexually curious female daughter (Alché), whose religious faith prompts her to respond by embarking upon a divine mission. Martel pieces together her narrative slowly, even hesitantly, so that we only gradually come to grasp relationships, motives, implications. But the wait is worth it. Through carefully composed images and meticulously mixed sound, she creates a world seemingly hermetic unto itself, but strangely familiar to us all. A world where good and evil, fear and desire, innocence and experience become, literally and metaphorically, a matter of perspective.” – Geoff Andrew, Time Out. 35mm. Approx. 106 min.

Part of Lucrecia Martel’s Salta Trilogy.

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