Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 241: Thu Aug 29

La Ciénaga (Martel, 2001): Barbican Cinema, 6.45pm



This 35mm presentation is part of the ‘Heat of the Moment’ season at the Barbican Cinema. You can find the full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
This astonishing 2001 debut by Argentine director Lucrecia Martel (The Holy Girl) manages to sustain tension and anxiety throughout. At their run-down country estate, a middle-aged couple drink away the hot, sticky days, ignoring their bored adolescent children. An accident next to the murky swimming pool sends the mother to her bed, while the other members of the family wander around, taking potshots at dogs and wild animals in the surrounding swamplands or flopping down on unmade beds, oblivious to ringing phones and doorbells and one another. After the mother's cousin arrives from town with her own brood, violence seems not just possible but probable. This has the power of great literature, and it's remarkably assured in its juggling of two large families. Every shot is dense with life, with children and animals running in and out, yet the movie is highly focused, a small masterpiece.
Meredith Brody

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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