Films from Argentine director the subject of retrospective
Since 2001, Lucrecia Martel has made only four feature films. Still, the Argentine director has made a name for herself as a filmmaker, one that the Harvard Film Archive has called a “dominant figure in contemporary world cinema and one of its great stylists.”
The Wexner Center for the Arts will welcome Martel to Columbus during a retrospective of the four movies, including her latest release, “Zama” (2017). On Wednesday, Martel will attend the screening of “Zama.” Also set to screen are “La Cienaga” (2001), “The Holy Girl” (2004) and “The Headless Woman” (2008).
Even Martel’s earliest films made cinephiles take note, said David Filipi, director of film/video at the Wexner Center.
“From the first time her first feature, ‘La Cienaga,’ hit the festival circuit and played in art houses around the country, she’s been a very celebrated filmmaker What: Lucrecia Martel retrospective Where: Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N. High St. Contact: 614-292-3535, www.wexarts.org Showtimes: 7 p.m. Tuesday, "The Headless Woman"; 7 p.m. Wednesday, "Zama"; 7 p.m. April 20: "La Cienaga" and short films; 7 p.m. April 21, "The Holy Girl" Admission: $8, or $6 for members, students and senior citizens
on the world stage,” he said. “It was one of those films that, the second it landed, everybody recognized (that) here was an interesting and strong new voice in cinema.”
“La Cienaga” is the story of an Argentine family imploding during a trip to a shabby vacation home.
“Zama” is based on the 1956 book of the same name by Argentine writer Antonio Di Benedetto. The film focuses on an 18th-century Spanish magistrate, Don Diego de Zama (played by Daniel Gimenez Cacho), sent to a remote colony in South America. He has been there for more than a year and wants a transfer to another location to be closer to his wife and family.
He suffers a series of frustrations: his advances toward a flirtatious noblewoman are encouraged but eventually rejected; he is evicted from his quarters and lands in a crumbling building; other colonials, including the governor and even his assistant, manage to secure transfers, but Zama never receives a letter from the king.
And, he fathers a child with a local woman.
Finally, he joins a group of soldiers trudging through a swamp in search of a bandit with a vicious reputation.
The release of “Zama” follows a mysterious nineyear absence by Martel, 51. Published reports speculate that she was ill or working on a science-fiction movie that ultimately collapsed. (Interview questions emailed by The Dispatch to Martel went unanswered. )
At the Venice Film Festival, where “Zama” premiered in August, Martel told The New York Times that, during her absence, she took a boat ride up the Parana River through Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. During the trip, she read “Zama,” which she summarized for The Times in one word: “euphoria.”
Critics have responded to “Zama,” which has a score of 85 (out of 100) on the moviereview aggregate website Metacritic. But the movie might not be for everyone.
“‘Zama’ is a difficult film,” critic Jessica Kiang wrote for movie website The Playlist. “But if you find a way to crack open its forbidding, austere exterior, there is treasure to be found — or at least something that sparkles, beautiful and cruel, like the spiky insides of a geode.”
Filipi doesn’t expect filmgoers to be disappointed.
“Like the directors that inhabit that rarefied space that she does, each film after that becomes a highly anticipated event,” he said. “People are really looking forward to what this person is going to create next.”