La Ciénaga (2001)
The life of two women and their families in a small provincial town of Salta, Argentina.
(NR, 103 min.)
Showtimes
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
7:00 PM
The release of Lucrecia Martel’s La Ciénaga heralded the arrival of an astonishingly vital and original voice in Argentine cinema. With a radical and disturbing take on narrative, beautiful cinematography, and a highly sophisticated use of on- and offscreen sound, Martel turns her tale of a dissolute bourgeois extended family, whiling away the hours of one sweaty, sticky summer, into a cinematic marvel. This visceral take on class, nature, sexuality, and the ways that political turmoil and social stagnation can manifest in human relationships is a drama of extraordinary tactility, and one of the great contemporary film debuts. [Janus]
Starring: Mercedes Morán, Graciela Borges, Martín Adjemián
Director: Lucrecia Martel
Language: Spanish
Genre(s): Comedy, Drama
"A veritable Chekhov tragicomedy of provincial life."
— Amy Taubin, Village Voice
"A stunning deconstruction of bourgeois complacency in the face of pastoral decay."
— Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
"An atmospheric and cumulatively impressive feature-length debut from Argentine writer-director Lucrecia Martel."
— Eddie Cockrell, Variety
"A fascinating, damning picture of bourgeois boredom that manages to be both epic and intimate at the same time."
— Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily
"Look closely and you'll find something not often present in your average art-house flick -- a hint, intense and unsettling, of art itself."
— Rick Groen, Globe and Mail
"Martel's off-the-cuff candor and intelligent eye for the quietly telling detail charts the progressive rot not only of a family, but of an entire social class."
— Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly
"A film that has an extraordinary cumulative power. Argentinean filmmaker Lucrecia Martel takes fundamental risks with form and style, and it pays off brilliantly."
— Patrick Z. McGavin, Chicago Tribune
"Every frame is dense with life, with children and animals running in and out, yet it's not messy. Instead it's highly focused--and something of a small masterpiece."
— Meredith Brody, Chicago Reader
"The triumph of La Cienaga lies in Martel's way of fashioning the kind of ensemble performance that draws us in by convincing us we're watching behavior, not acting."
— Jay Carr, Boston Globe
"Martel's sharp observations of the foibles of human nature are expressed perfectly in the telling images of cinematographer Hugo Colace and tight editing of Santiago Ricci."
— Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
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