Reviews for August 19th, 2009
The Headless Woman
Directed by Lucrecia Martel.
In Spanish with subtitles. Vero (Maria Onetto), a middle-aged woman, drives down a road during a downpour and, as she reaches to answer her cell phone, she feels and hears a few thuds, as if her car had run over a something. She immediately stop her car, freezes and simply drives away without looking back to see what or who she had run over. It appears to be that she ran over a dog, which lies dead on the road, but she’s under the impression that it was a young boy instead who she accidentally killed. After stopping by the hospital to get an X-ray, she heads on over to a hotel where she has sex with Juan Manuel (Daniel Genoud), who’s married to Josefina (Claudia Cantero). Candita (Inés Efron), Josefina’s daughter, has a physical attraction toward Vero. It turns out that Vero not only has a husband, Marcos (César Bordón), but two daughters as well. Ever since the day of the accident, though, she has been behaving strangling as if she has amnesia. Essentially, she experiences trauma from the accident itself and from her fear that she killed a young boy. Even though, initially, she’s not completely sure about whether or not she actually ran over a boy, her memory and trepidation continue to play tricks on her, so, eventually, she becomes convinced about it and also admits it to Marcos, who tries to help her by driver her to the scene of the accident. Viewers looking for a thriller with action and relentless suspense, i.e. Tell No One, will be disappointed. Writer/director Lucrecia Martel wisely doesn’t use shaky camera movements to generate tension. Instead, builds up the psychological tension very gradually. You expect Vero to suffer some sort of a nervous breakdown after the accident, but, instead, she doesn’t show any signs of rational thinking or outwardly expressions of regret. Is she merely in a state of shock that causes her to be so calm or is it more complicated than that? The slow pace along with Vero’s calmness helps to create an initially eerie atmosphere as if some kind of twist or tragic event will suddenly occur at any point, but eventually the pace turns too sluggish. You’ll probably find yourself asking, “Where is all of this going exactly? Why should I care about what happens to Vero or anyone else onscreen in the first place?” Martel, who previously directed The Holy Girl and La Cienaga/The Swamp, gives you very little background information about Vera’s past before the accident and she doesn’t really open up emotionally, so you’re left with more frustrating questions than answers, even as the third act draws nearer. At a running time of 87 minutes, The Headless Woman manages to be an initially intriguing, well-shot psychological drama with diminishing suspense. It eventually starts to drag, leaving you feeling concurrently frustrated and underwhelmed. Number of times I checked my watch: 4 Released by Strand Releasing. Opens at the Film Forum. 
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