Vero (Maria Onetto) is driving home at night when she hits something in her car was it a dog or a child After the incident Vero is transformed from an elegant professional woman with self-agency to a passive state she says little, her face becomes an intrinsically meaningless mask. Is she suffering from concussion or is she traumatised by the accident Alongside her disconnect from reality the men in her life take over to clear up the evidence of this and other indiscretions.
Directed by Lucrecia Martel, (The Swamp (2001), The Holy Girl (2004)), who also wrote the screenplay, and co-produced by Pedro and Agustin Almodovar, The Headless Woman is a film with indisputable pedigree. Yet Martel’s unconventional narrative has polarised audiences. Some see the film as wilfully enigmatic art house stuff, while others believe it is a masterly psychological examination of repressed/suppressed guilt. To get the most out of The Headless Woman it is important to notice the peculiar camera angles what’s happening at the margin of the screen, should we be focusing on Vero or what’s happening there And who are we listening to, someone talking to Vero or a conversation in the middle distance
This is a layered film. As well as a class and gender critique, it can be viewed as a metaphor for Argentina’s recent history, where Vero’s denial of guilt may be symbolic of the former dictatorial regimes silence about the disappeared. In interviews the director has described the film as a reference to the class disparity between Argentina’s light-skinned bourgeoisie and its darker-skinned workers something else to look out for from the start. But Martel has also said the 1970s music should remind Argentinean audiences of the dictatorship.
Disturbing and deeply mysterious, this tale of ghosts and guilt is nothing short of a masterpiece. 5 stars. Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.
Every frame of this brilliant, maddeningly enigmatic puzzle of a movie contains crucial information, much of it glimpsed on the periphery and sometimes passing so quickly you barely have time to blink. Stephen Holden, The New York Times.
A low hum of menace comes off the screen, never rising in pitch, yet never entirely subsiding either. Like guilt. Ryan Gilbey, New Statesman.
