Like the Oscar-winning El secreto de sus ojos before it, this remarkable 2007 Argentinian film took its time in arriving in Britain. Having made something of a stir at the Cannes film festival in 2008, it has beguiled, intrigued and confused viewers ever since. Some people will write it off as typical, pretentious art house fare; whereas I would be more inclined to call it a masterful and nuanced look at the effect of guilt on the human mind.
Either way, there is no denying that it is slow moving – its fixed shots, Lucrecia Martel’s unfussy direction, and the organic development are reminiscent of recent Michael Haneke classic Hidden (Caché) and even the more recent Dogtooth (Kynodontas). But, and tellingly so, this is for a very specific reason and one could not imagine it any other way. For the film tells the story of middle-aged Argentinain mother Vero (María Onetto) who unwittingly crashes into something (which the viewer does not see) on a deserted road. Deciding against stopping and seeing what it was, she checks herself into hospital, shell-shocked, the creeping guilt and sadness slowly but surely driving her towards some sort of nervous breakdown.
What she collided with is obvious from the start and it takes Vero a couple of days to explain this to her nearest and dearest, barely able to articulate anything at all. Her life continues to pass by in a dream-like, anaesthetized haze before her family conspire to remove all evidence of the crime and cover it up. It is in this detail that the movie’s socio-political implications are most clearly felt, as the easy, eerie way in which the evidence is removed is redolent of the many desparecidos (“disappeared” people) of the country’s dictatorial past.
But the guilt is not just derived from this; those affected most by the accident are, in fact, members of Argentina’s indigenous working class, whose lives and subservience are laid bare by Martel. Like the aforementioned Caché, there is a sense of lingering post-colonial guilt and culpability only really felt by Vero, as she stares herself towards the void.
Part of the attraction of this fabulous film is the natural accretion of detail. In a realistic manner, there are many loose ends hinted at, such as the turtles in the local swimming pool, which add towards the film’s ghostly mystery. Though, being an Argentine indie as it is, there is still room for some incest and weird lesbianism, which hint at a situation beyond our comprehension.
Tremendously acted, especially by Onetto and Claudia Cantero, the film’s 87 minutes positively fly by. Though its strange examination of mental disintegration and guilt will linger long in the mind. It has all the right ingredients to be a cult classic – and rightly so. Have a look.
Out now on DVD.
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