Photo: Graciela Borges as Mecha in Lucrecia Martel's La Ciénaga
Lucrecia Martel's La Ciénaga is a stunning affront to bourgeois complacency. Mecha (Graciela Borges) and her inebriated friends hang out by the filthy family pool when the woman slips, falls, and cuts her bosom on broken glass. Then, a splash of color—bright red peppers to evoke a family business about to bleed dry. Mecha is perpetually rabid, verbally abusing her servants while insincerely promising a friend that they'll soon take a trip to hostile Bolivia. A more literal ciénaga is to be found in the distance, where Mecha's boys aim guns at a cow sinking into a muddy swamp. Not unlike their mother, they are seemingly conscious of the country's hierarchical class order when they shoo dark-skinned, native boys away from ravenous dogs. The boys warn: "Don't pat them, it tames them." A life is shattered so abruptly you might gasp—not because of the horror of the crash but because no one was there to listen. A deceptively simple tale, La Ciénaga is an evocation of willingly allowing oneself (and one's country) to go to seed.
Lucrecia Martel's La Ciénaga is a stunning affront to bourgeois complacency. Mecha (Graciela Borges) and her inebriated friends hang out by the filthy family pool when the woman slips, falls, and cuts her bosom on broken glass. Then, a splash of color—bright red peppers to evoke a family business about to bleed dry. Mecha is perpetually rabid, verbally abusing her servants while insincerely promising a friend that they'll soon take a trip to hostile Bolivia. A more literal ciénaga is to be found in the distance, where Mecha's boys aim guns at a cow sinking into a muddy swamp. Not unlike their mother, they are seemingly conscious of the country's hierarchical class order when they shoo dark-skinned, native boys away from ravenous dogs. The boys warn: "Don't pat them, it tames them." A life is shattered so abruptly you might gasp—not because of the horror of the crash but because no one was there to listen. A deceptively simple tale, La Ciénaga is an evocation of willingly allowing oneself (and one's country) to go to seed.
