La Ciénaga

aka: The Swamp
Argentina 2001, 96 minutes
Dir. Lucrecia Martel
In Spanish with English subtitles
Rating: [M]
Genres: Foreign Cinema, Drama

Feat. Graciela Borges, Mercedes Morán, Martín Adjemián, Daniel Valenzuela

Aroview: Dir. Lucrecia Martel's debut film is an abstract Chekhovian tale of two bourgeois families roasting under the Argentinian sun within the confines of their secluded estate.

An appropriately sticky atmosphere pervades this mesmerizing, if doggedly ambiguous anti-narrative, more concerned with quiet observation and the small, startling details that emerge from within its slow-revealing story.

NZ International Film Festival 2002