265 - La Cienega, 2001, Argentina. Dir. Lucrecia Martel.

Friday, September 22, 2017

265 - La Cienega, 2001, Argentina.  Dir. Lucrecia Martel.

Sound is the tactile and three-dimensional component of cinema. - Lucrecia Martel.

Think of yourself as being at the bottom of an ocean of air.

Salta, her hometown.  "The capital city of faith."

She received a telescope at 15.  Then a microscope.  Then a movie camera.  She made a short film as a child called Three Cowboys.  It featured her siblings.

She smokes cigars.

A Modigliani print.  A Van Gogh painting.  Drawings like musical scores.  Brushstrokes marking out a rhythm.  Being submerged.'

It's very hard to get a scene to work if you don't have an intense desire for something unexpected to happen. - Lucrecia Martel.

These are some of her thoughts.  Some of her creative ideas.

This is her first feature film.

The Swamp.

It is Summer.  Let us go to La Mandragora.

Mecha and her husband Grigorio sit by the swimming pool.  He dyes his hair.  It stains the pillow. The swimming pool is murky.  The water opaque.  It has not been cleaned in years.

They drag the steel chairs across the cement tile.  The scratching blares into the woods like a rusty trumpet.  Off key.

Her son is in the woods.  With a gun.  The boys play at hunting.  A cow is stuck in the mud river. Drowning.  It drowns.

The adults drink.

And sit.

In this hot and languid Summer.

Yes, the humid air is as thick as the gellous water.  They swim in it.  Or sit suspended at the bottom. Submerged.

Mecha gets up and walks.  She falls.  The glass breaks.  She lands on it.  She cuts her chest.

Grigorio sends their fourteen-year-old daughter, Momi, to drive her to the doctor.  Momi runs over the hydrangeas.  She says she does not have a license.  He says go anyway.  The roads are deserted. No one will stop her.

Mecha's cousin, or almost cousin, Tali comes to call.  She lives in La Cienega.  She and her husband Rafael and their younger children come to La Mandragora.  The mandrake.

The place is packed.  The house is full.  The cousins lie around.  The children find something to do.

Jose entertains his female cousins.  Dances with them.  Dances with his mother.  Makes them laugh.

He goes out.  Gets into a fight.  Gets injured.

The kids swim at the dam.  Swing their machetes.  Run from the spraying water.

The plot is like the pool water.  It sits.  It bubbles.  It contains things lurking beneath the surface.  A dead leaf floats on top.

The viewer joins the stupor.

As the hours pass.

In this day in the country.