La Ciénaga (film)

Plot

The film tells the story of Mecha (Graciela Borges), a middle-aged woman in her 50s who has several teenagers. Her husband Gregorio (Martín Adjemián) wants to remain looking young, and both of them have to deal with their gloomy Amerindian servants, whom Mecha accuses of theft and laziness. Both Mecha and Gregorio take to drinking to cope with day-to-day living.

In order to avoid the hot and humid weather of the city, the family spends their summers in their rural shabby country home that they have named "La Mandragora".

Mecha's cousin, Tali (Mercedes Morán), lives in the nearby city of La Ciénaga (The Swamp, in English) and has a brood of small, noisy children and a husband, Rafael (Daniel Valenzuela), who loves his family and also hunts.

Before long, the crowded domestic situation in both homes strains the families' nerves, exposing repressed family mysteries, and tensions that threaten to erupt into violence.

Cast

Background

Director Lucrecia Martel has said in media interviews that the story is based on "memories of her own family." She has also said, "I know what kind of film I've made. Not a very easy one! For me, it's not a realistic film. It's something strange, a little weird. It's the kind of film where you can't tell what's going to happen, and I wanted the audience to be very uncomfortable from the beginning."

Filming location
The film was shot entirely in Martel's home town, Salta, in Salta Province, Argentina.

Distribution

The film was first featured at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 8, 2001. It opened in Argentina on March 8, 2001 at the Mar del Plata Film Festival, and enjoyed wide release in Argentina on April 12, 2001.

The drama was also shown at various film festivals, including: the Karlovy Vary Film Festival; the Toronto International Film Festival; the New York Film Festival; the Warsaw Film Festival; International Film Festival, Rotterdam; the Titanic International Filmpresence Festival, Hungary; the Adelaide International Film Festival; the Uruguay International Film Festival; and the Havana Film Festival, Cuba.

In the United States, it was presented at the New York Film Festival on October 2, 2001. It also opened in Los Angeles on October 12, 2001.

Critical reception

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 86% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on thirty-six reviews. It also holds a 75/100 on Metacritic. Writing for The New York Times, critic Stephen Holden liked Lucrecia Martel's debut film, and called it "remarkable," writing, "The steamy ambiance in which the characters fester is a metaphor for creeping social decay...La Ciénaga perspires from the screen, it creates a vision of social malaise that feels paradoxically familiar and new."

Critic David Lipfert also liked the director's various sociological messages and metaphors contained in the film. He believes the "New Argentina Cinema" is moving beyond the themes related to the military dictatorship period of the late 1970s and early 1980s. He wrote, "[Martel's] intense, in-your-face portrait of a dissolute middle class lacks the usual justifying criminal context. Martel simply holds up a mirror to Argentine society, and the result is devastating. Instead of creating an allegory with archetypes, she shows characters that are all too real. When still, her camera is low and close as though we were right on top of the actors."

When the film opened in New York City, the film critic for The Village Voice Amy Taubin wrote, "Lucrecia Martel's La Ciénaga is a veritable Chekhov tragicomedy of provincial life. Making a brilliant debut, Martel constructs her narrative from quotidian incidents, myriad comings and goings, and a cacophony of voices competing for attention...[i]n a debut feature that's assured in every aspect, Martel's direction of the younger members of her cast is particularly notable."

According to review aggregator They Shoot Pictures, Don't They, it is the 76th most acclaimed film since 2000.

Awards

Wins

Nominations