La mujer sin cabeza

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.

Martel is quickly becoming a master of her own filmic sensibility, which I might call the "art of eavesdropping cinema," and she makes consummate use of something inherent to the medium to take us inside the characters and content of stories that have almost nothing to do with traditional plot points.

As an audience, we are all eavesdroppers (or voyeurs) when we watch a movie. And Martel's sensibility, or way of telling a story, is not only to provide clues to what she is investigating, but to inform us with what she considers important about it. There is a bit of Hitchcock (Rear Window comes to mind), and certainly some of Altman's audio technique around conversation. There is also an exploration of neurosis that one might liken to Almodovar (her producer), yet without the bold, soap operatic farce. And there is also something of Bergman and Antonioni.

La Mujer Sin Cabeza (while not my favorite of her films) is still a sure step forward as a filmmaker. This is not only her most focused film, but it makes use of a more developed cinematic technique than either of her previous two films. Strangely, it has not been received as well. The problem, I believe, has much to due to the predisposition of most film viewers, who not only lack of patience, but the ability to adjust to a film operating in ways they are not accustomed to.

Martel's narratives may seem disjointed at first, as they jump from one scene to another without obvious connection, but they are extremely well thought out. The problem, as I said, has more to do with confounded viewer expectations, and the inability to adapt to a different approach in cinematic narrative, one that is very appropriate to the content of Martel's design. For the uninitiated, her films benefit from a second viewing, if only because what at first seems insignificant or disconnected is actually very important, and provides access to her dry subtle satire.

The power of "Mujer Sin Cabeza," (as with all films) is grounded in our perceptions of the main character's experience (or our experience of her perceptions), which not only infect us with her mental / emotional state, but draw us into the kind of life that she leads, in the balance, providing us a window into modern day Argentina.

Here, we are also made aware of a social system in the midst of decay, being held together by the ever more twisted and frayed threads of a colonial past that seeks preservation, in spite of increasing moral dysfunction, and the inability to take responsibility for anything that interferes with the social system beyond making it disappear...

Wow. A lot going' on here. So let's jump right into a hearty but brief dissection of the unusual and unorthodox Argentinean drama "The Headless Woman".

A well-to-do dentist (María Onetto in a mesmerizing performance) hits something with her car on a dirt back road. A dog? A kid? It's not made expressly clear as she doesn't go back to investigate, instead choosing to drive onward. This occurs in the first few minutes of the story. For the rest of the film we watch as this woman descends ever deeper into a kind of detached and dazed mental and emotional disintegration. Metaphorically, she has "lost her head". Is she riddled by guilt? Fear? Uncertainty? Anything and everything? Writer/Director Lucrecia Martel never brings this entirely into focus, not unlike several of the fuzzily photographed scenes she utilizes to tell her peculiar tale.

One thing for sure, however. Martel has intentionally fashioned a treatise on an indoctrinated class separation between "the haves" and "the have-nots". She decisively presents this socioeconomic chasm as firmly entrenched institution in her native Argentina.

What is not nearly as obvious is the interpretation of "The Headless Woman" as allegorical commentary. And while, granted, this may be a stretch, it is not out of line by any means, either. To wit, Martel seems to be suggesting that this woman's capacity to put a potential tragedy behind her virtually as if it had never even happened is at least effectively similar to an apparent reluctance by many in Argentina to recognize the appalling and systematic mass executions by the country's government of those classified as dissident and subversive from the mid-1970's through the mid-'80's.

The closing blurred images of "The Headless Woman" depict a bewildered soul, one by way of the machinations of those around her who possess the power inherent to make unpleasant things "go away", is free to go on about the privileged preoccupations of fraternizing and partying with those of "her kind". And may the past be damned.

Or, more accurately, as we have come to understand over the trancelike course of events heretofore chronicled, and which are almost unquestionably still fated to linger in the memory of this descendant of the fortunate, damning.

This film shows how much Martel is a true Auteur. This film was fascinating to me. It really brings light to the people of Salta, Argentina. You definitely can understand the motif of this woman in a upper class family and the symbolism of the indigenous boy who represents the abandonment of lower class families by the government.

Vero (Maria Onetto) has run over something while traveling back home, but she's totally scared and shocked to stop and watch (was it a boy or a dog?). Instead, she just goes on... from that moment,for Vero its time to try to forget.

Blames, ghosts, fears and uncertainties turn the third Lucrecia Martel's film into a masterpiece which will divide even to her fans. There are many feelings around the story and no one is completely shown or expressed. The clues to find out what Vero run over slowly appear but don't expect to understand clearly what happened, and neither understand what is she thinking nor feeling. Her head seems having stayed on the road where she had the accident and now is everything is dark and confused.

Lucrecia Martel's camera shoots the story in a society where the social differences are clear, but their characters are not aware of it.

The performances are quite good. Maria Onetto is so expressive! all of them are really involved with the film. Even Inés Efrón is good! - because I still cant understand why critics said she was excellent in 'XXY'.

As I said, 'The headless woman' is not for everyone, ''it is confused ,too experimental and not totally resolved'' some wrote. But trust me, it's intelligent, different and sensitive. It is a road to nowhere, it is a map without any road. Because she has lost her head in that accident and as a viewer you just follow the road you may feel is the right to understand Vero and the story.

Thanks Lucrecia!... again.

10/10