La femme sans tête

Argentine politics from the 1970s and class differences of today play an important role in Lucrecia Martel's third film, The Headless Woman, the story of a middle-aged woman refusing to confront the truth about a hit and run accident. Shown at the Vancouver Film Festival, The Headless Woman, like Martel's earlier works, defies conventional cinematic language and can be challenging to appreciate on first viewing. Characters come and go, seemingly unrelated incidents pile up, and we hardly know who is who, but little of that ultimately matters. What is more important is that Martel has taken us effortlessly into the head of the main character as persuasively as any film in recent memory and has turned one woman's failings into a clear and simple statement of her own vision.

The Headless Woman opens on a rural road in Salta Province in northwest Argentina where four young boys and their dog are engaged in risky play along the highway as a car approaches. The atmosphere is one that portends danger. Meanwhile, a group of friends prepare to leave a gathering. Children are being shepherded in and out of cars while one mother, Josefina (Claudia Cantero) models her eyelashes in the car window. One woman (Maria Onetto) stands out because of the bleached blond color of her flowing hair that comes down to her shoulders The woman, Veronica (called Vero by her acquaintances), runs a dental clinic with her brother but we know nothing else about her life, past or present.

While driving home by herself, she hears the ring of her cell phone and is momentarily distracted from the road. Suddenly she feels a thud and her head is thrust backward, then forward onto the dash. Whether or not she has hit something, a dog or a person, is unclear because the woman is frozen into inaction for what seems to be an eternity. She stops the car but is unable or unwilling to step outside to see what happened. She thinks she sees a dog in the rear view mirror but does not turn around to get a closer look. Eventually she gets out of the car but simply stands there while the first drops of a heavy storm pound the windshield and we can see mysterious fingerprints on the side window.

Soon she drives off to be x-rayed at the local hospital while the radio plays Nana Mouskouri's "Soleil Soleil", a song that was popular in the seventies. She appears dazed and barely recognizes the people around her but continues smiling incessantly. Her husband Marcos (Cesar Bordon) notices her disorientation but learns nothing about that night until much later when she tells him that she may have killed someone. Juan Manuel (Daniel Genoud), her husband's cousin and occasional lover, calls the police and tells her there were no reports of an accident on that night but one week later, a boy's body is retrieved from the canal with no indication of a cause of death. The boy was one of the children who worked for her gardener. Immediately her friends cover all traces of her possible involvement in what could be a potential crime. X-rays disappear as well as records of her hotel room tryst with Juan Manuel. Similarly, her car is repaired with all traces of the accident removed.

The Headless Woman is grounded in Vero's inability to focus on the reality of the life happening all around her. She is a detached observer rather than a participant, operating in a world of privilege where her every need is met by her extended family or by dark-skinned servants and boys begging to give a car wash for something to eat. In that milieu, Vero can easily avoid taking responsibility for her actions whether it be cheating on her husband or failing to investigate a car accident. Like the pampered middle class of her country, she is deaf to the suffering around her, and her decision to forget may be a metaphor for the collective amnesia of her country of the torture and murder of thousands during the dictatorship of the seventies.

Martel has stated that her aesthetic decision to link the 70s with the current time is a statement calling attention to the fact that the blindness of the past continues to the present day in the growing disparity between rich and poor. That she has shaken us and provoked us to look at unpleasant facts about her characters, the world, and perhaps even about ourselves is a hint as to why her magnificent and audacious film was booed at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Headless Woman moves to the beat of its own drummer, which is Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel, and if one is able to go with it it's quite an existential trip. Existential by which I mean a character's actions have consequences - or, if they don't, there is still the lingering sensation that they do. In this case a woman, Vero (Maria Onetto), hits something (or someone, an animal or a person, most likely a person), but keeps driving on. We don't really know what she hit either as Martel keeps the camera moving away from the person or thing from a great distance. It could be one of the children we see playing in the first scene in the film. Or it could be one of the dogs which Vero's husband or friend or other makes light of. Could be just a gigantic damn pot-hole. Who knows?

The film moves along like an existential parable, or, to put a more apt comparison, Antonioni's L'Avventura. We see something happen early in the film, and the rest of the runtime is spent with a character who keeps trying to face up to what happened, even as the details of the event and what happened slip away and the mundane quality of life takes over once again. We're not directed to the overarching issue of a real 'plot', just little things happening around Vero. She's in a bathroom soon after the accident cleaning herself up and in the background we hear dialog that could be referring to her about an accident, but isn't. She's in a car with someone passing by right where the accident was, and firemen are looking at at a pipe that's clogged (presumably from the storm) to see what it is. Could be anything, could be nothing. Who knows anything?

The Headless Woman is not for the impatient; even at 87 minutes it can be tiresome to see nothing exactly "happen" except a middle-aged woman with distinctly frizzy blonde hair (helping to also make an incredible poster image) quietly fretting about what happened, while her family and friends continue on with whatever is they do in their sort of bourgeois existence, and she goes back to work as a dentist. It's safe to say even I got a little fidgety at times. But I was never really bored, and her performance Onetto's performance kept me going even when the mundane took over. What happens when there are no consequences, Martel might be asking? Can one wipe away something like a hit-and-run when there's little left of evidence as to what was or wasn't there? It becomes a minor issue as the film goes on, being almost nothing in the last ten minutes.

But the film itself matters because it's finely shot (the cinematographer should have gotten all the awards he could get for his subtle and carefully haunted lighting and framing), and the tone is so assured. This is a mature film dealing with a subject that seems like what it is, a situation. A niche film that, when it works, is brilliant, and when it doesn't still looks pretty. Like Antonioni.

OK, how can I begin with this...

First, I was expecting lots from this movie, now that I'm more used to Argentinian's films. But oh my God... this 80 (sufferable) minutes wasn't on my expectations.

The story & the way it is shot, yes, is beautiful and completely interesting, and some people will say that the slow pace is necessary... Well, I DON'T think so... the slow pace made me wanna leave the theater since the first 30 minutes, (and actually some people at the theater left) I know Martel normally uses this kind of rhythm in her movies, but in a completely different and interesting way!! (as in La Ciénaga & La Niña Santa) and usually (apparently) nothing happens, BUT everything is happening, right there in front of you.

Well, in this one, apparently nothing happens, and actually... NOTHING is happening.

And all that technical things, like using that kind of lenses and that focus, (that's the only way to show what the character is feeling/thinking?? Don't think so!) and cutting the character's head all the time... Well, there is a moment when enough is definitely, enough.

Bored me to the core, HATE WHEN PEOPLE DO FILMS FOR THEMSELVES BUT NOT SO INTERESTING FILMS FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO SEE.

The plot (apparently) was interesting, and (again I repeat) she knows how to shoot and camera movements are beautiful, but come on!! Tell me this story in 40 minutes not in 80!!

And all that lesbian stuff... totally and completely unnecessary.

If you really want to see it (as I did), wait till it crashes video clubs.

At once exquisitely crafted and exasperating, Martel's latest reflects the confused mental disintegration of a character whose problems are variably inchoate. Her crisis seems spurred by an act of accidental murder--in the countryside, she runs over something.

That it was a German Shepherd is clearly represented in one distinct post-impact shot following a prelude in which the hound is shown playing with several children. But afterward our protagonist (a dyejob-blonde, middle-aged, upper-class woman) has strange ideations of having killed a human being. Is that what really happened? Or is it just her guilt from...whatever?

There's nothing unintended in this very precisely directed movie, but at the same time its ambiguity can be frustrating. (Perhaps less so if you're better acquainted with Argentine class/race issues than me.) It's a mystery without a resolution, a thriller minus thrills. That's OK, but even as deliberate enigma "The Headless Woman" seems somewhat stillborn. (Think what Antonioni circa 1960 could have done with it!)

It's full of interesting detail yet void of larger meaning or narrative direction; intriguing in a way that stops just short of utter fascination. You can't fault the director or her actors for falling short--it's the script (also by Martel) that ends up a little too amorphous.

It's not often you see a movie that feels so close to brilliant, yet something indefinable is missing. This is a good film that perhaps in coming years will gain a reputation as an overlooked masterpiece--and while I can't sign on with that opinion right now, I can see how it might accumulate.

This is definitely a strange film. It is certainly not for everyone, but it is not without anything good. To say this film has a story is like saying The Tree of Life has a plot. True but misleading. This movie does not follow any traditional narrative structure and lacks a clear resolution. It is written as if you are following a women as she goes through her daily life and as the film goes on it feels less like a film and more like a strangely filmed documentary. It has a unique visual style that heightens the sense of confusion felt by the protagonist by utilizing long takes that keep her in the frame, but cut off most of the action. It can feel at times like it is being strangely filmed for no good reason other than to be different. If you are looking for a strong story and/or plot you will be disappointed, but you should judge the film on its own terms and try to appreciate what its trying to do. It is by no means great and if you not are a fan of these kinds of films then you should avoid this one, but is at the very least an visual interesting film if somewhat narratively weak.