La ciénaga (film)

Mecha, a woman in her 50s with several teenage children and a husband Gregorio, wants to remain looking young. In order to avoid the hot and humid weather of the city, the family spends the summers in their decaying country estate named La Mandrágora. After Mecha falls and injures herself, she is confined to her bed, and takes to drinking. She resents her gloomy Amerindian servants, whom she accuses of theft and laziness. Mecha's cousin Tali, who lives in a modest house in town with her husband Rafael, makes repeated visits with her brood of young, noisy children to escape from her claustrophobic home. 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.

• Graciela Borges as Mecha
• Mercedes Morán as Tali
• Martín Adjemián as Gregorio
• Daniel Valenzuela as Rafael
• Leonora Balcarce as Verónica
• Silvia Baylé as Mercedes
• Sofia Bertolotto as Momi
• Juan Cruz Bordeu as José
• Noelia Bravo Herrera as Agustina
• Maria Micol Ellero as Mariana
• Andrea López as Isabel
• Sebastián Montagna as Luciano
• Franco Veneranda as Martín
• Fabio Villafane as Perro
• Diego Baenas as Joaquín

Lucrecia Martel's screenplay for the film won the Sundance Institute/NHK Award in 1999; this award honors and supports emerging independent filmmakers.[1] The jury suggested she re-write the script to follow a more traditional structure around one or two protagonists, but she chose instead to retain the script's diffuse nature.[2]

Martel has said in media interviews that the story is based on "memories of her own family."[3] 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."[4]

To find the child actors for the film, Martel held 2,400 auditions, 1,600 of which she recorded on video in a garage near her home in Salta, northwestern Argentina.

In casting the main characters Mecha and Tali, Martel says "in Salta I didn't find what I was looking for and, instead, I saw a television programme showed to me by a woman friend who knew what I was looking for. Graciela Borges was in it and I realized I had found my character. Mercedes Morán was more difficult because someone I had very much in mind inspired that character. Besides, the character Mercedes played in Gasoleros distracted me, due to the naturalistic language television has, which is the least natural in the world. But I saw her at some point in a magazine in some photographs they had taken of her with her daughter, on holiday, and there, away from the character in Gasoleros, I realized she was the only one for my film, as Lita Stantic had already suggested."[5]

La ciénaga was shot entirely in Martel's hometown of Salta.

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

It 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.

It was presented at the New York Film Festival on October 2, 2001, and opened in Los Angeles on October 12.

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 86% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on thirty-six reviews.[6] It also holds a 75/100 on Metacritic.[7] 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."[8]

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."[9]

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."[10]

According to review aggregator They Shoot Pictures, Don't They, it is the 76th most acclaimed film since 2000.[11]

Wins

• Berlin International Film Festival: Alfred Bauer Prize, Lucrecia Martel; 2001.
• Havana Film Festival: Best Actress, Graciela Borges; Best Director, Lucrecia Martel; Best Sound, Hervé Guyader, Emmanuel Croset, Guido Berenblum, Adrián De Michele; Grand Coral - First Prize, Lucrecia Martel; 2001.
• Toulouse Latin America Film Festival: French Critics' Discovery Award, Lucrecia Martel; Grand Prix, Lucrecia Martel; 2001.
• Uruguay International Film Festival: First Work Award - Special Mention, Lucrecia Martel; 2001.
• Uruguayan Film Critics Association: UFCA Award Best Latin American Film; 2001.
• Argentine Film Critics Association Awards: Silver Condor; Best Actress, Graciela Borges; Best Cinematography, Hugo Colace; Best First Film, Lucrecia Martel; 2002.

Nominations

• Berlin International Film Festival: Golden Berlin Bear, Lucrecia Martel; 2001.
• Argentine Film Critics Association Awards: Silver Condor; Best Art Direction, Graciela Oderigo; Best Director, Lucrecia Martel; Best Film; Best Original Screenplay, Lucrecia Martel; Best Supporting Actress, Mercedes Morán; 2002.
• MTV Movie Awards, Latin America: MTV Movie Award, MTV South Feed (mostly Argentina) - Favorite Film, Lucrecia Martel; 2002.

• La ciénaga at IMDb
• La ciénaga at cinenacional.com (in Spanish)
• La ciénaga review at Cineismo by Guillermo Ravaschino (in Spanish)
• La ciénaga film trailer on YouTube (in Spanish)
• La Ciénaga: What's Outside the Frame an essay by David Oubiña at the Criterion Collection