TripAdvisor - Argentina
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(Spoilers)
"What is it,
Lord, you want of me?" sings the choir leader as tears start to flow from her eyes.
Behind her back two girls gossip--they've seen her passionately kissing a man. One of the
gossips is Amalia (Maria Alche), who lives in a hotel/spa owned by her family and run by
her mother, Helena (radiant Mercedes Moran), and her uncle, Freddy (Alejandro
Urdapilleta).
At the hotel pool, Amalia prays to distract herself from the male
bodies on view, but it is difficult to contain her blooming adolescent desire. Her friend
and fellow-gossip, Josefina (Julieta Zylberberg), explores sex with her cousin, but stops
short of vaginal intercourse. "I don't want premarital relations," she declares
while apparently indulging in just about everything else.
Writer/director Lucrecia Martel (La
Cienaga) fills her film with well drawn characters, real people caught up in the
disquietudes of difficult relationships, a demanding religion, unfulfilled needs, broken
families. Contradictions abound. The spa, a place of healing and cleansing, is a decaying
old building; chambermaids are constantly spraying in an attempt to keep the facility
clear of encroaching decay. There is a convention of
otolaryngologists (ear/nose/throat specialists) at the hotel, healers who, it becomes
clear, deal in their own share of moral corruption.
One of the physicians, Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso), a married man with
children, turns out to have a sexual interest in adolescent girls. Amalia, in a confused
amalgam of desire and perceived religious vocation, encourages the terrified Jano. Her
divorced mother is attracted to Jano as well, and not beyond responding when she thinks
Jano is making an advance on her. There's a suggestion of an overly intimate connection
between Helena and her brother, too.
Martel lets her story proceed in small steps, short scenes that often
suggest, rather than overtly assert what is going on. She gives it all a perfectly natural
air and she is nonjudgmental, even sympathetic towards the moral shortfalls of these
people. Her characters are likable, lending all the greater sense of decadence as the
hidden behaviors, twisted rationalizations and dysfunctional relationships of the
ensemble come into focus. It's a stunning piece of dramatic filmmaking, a completely
original approach to the material that delivers a delayed punch as the evidence accrues.
As John Sayles ended his film, Limbo,
Martel brings her film to an unexpected and seemingly precipitous close which is
bound to be offputting for some. But, as with Sayles, the filmmaker already has made her
point; tying up the plot with a neat ending isn't necessary. Indeed, by not doing so,
Martel pushes the viewer into further consideration of what has come before and
underscores the central thrust of her thoughtful and observant film.
- Arthur Lazere
