Photo: Zhang Ziyi as Mei in Lucrecia Martel's The Holy Girl
The story of intersecting lives in and around an Argentine hotel where a medical convention takes place, Lucrecia Martel's The Holy Girl conflates the confusion of adolescent desire with spiritual paranoia. When Dr. Jeno (Carlos Belloso) rubs his crotch against the teenage Amalia (Maria Alché) outside the hotel managed by her family, the girl experiences a divine moment. In their Cannes report, The Hollywood Reporter trivializes the film by calling it "a forbidden-love story centering around societal and religious conventions," a somewhat arrogant comment that ignores the film's very specific cultural moment. Amalia is not in love with Dr. Jeno; he is but a pervert who knows how to exploit an advantageous situation and she is a naïve Catholic girl who confuses his erection for a message from God. Martel shuns exposition, sometimes frustratingly so, but that's because the director intends audiences to approach her films as mood pieces. The Holy Girl is about the sensation of religious fervor in Latin America and how that obsession is inextricably bound to sex. Ed Gonzalez
The story of intersecting lives in and around an Argentine hotel where a medical convention takes place, Lucrecia Martel's The Holy Girl conflates the confusion of adolescent desire with spiritual paranoia. When Dr. Jeno (Carlos Belloso) rubs his crotch against the teenage Amalia (Maria Alché) outside the hotel managed by her family, the girl experiences a divine moment. In their Cannes report, The Hollywood Reporter trivializes the film by calling it "a forbidden-love story centering around societal and religious conventions," a somewhat arrogant comment that ignores the film's very specific cultural moment. Amalia is not in love with Dr. Jeno; he is but a pervert who knows how to exploit an advantageous situation and she is a naïve Catholic girl who confuses his erection for a message from God. Martel shuns exposition, sometimes frustratingly so, but that's because the director intends audiences to approach her films as mood pieces. The Holy Girl is about the sensation of religious fervor in Latin America and how that obsession is inextricably bound to sex. Ed Gonzalez
