2017 Cannes Marathon: The Holy Girl

(Played in Competition for the Palme d’Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival)

Written and directed by Lucrecia Martel, La nina santa (The Holy Girl) is the story of a young woman who meets a troubled doctor at a medical conference at a hotel where she hopes to help him from himself. The film is a multi-themed film that explores a young woman coming into adulthood as she discovers sexuality as well as dealing with aspects of her own faith. Starring Mercedes Moran, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapilleta, Juliet Zylberberg, and Maria Alche. La nina santa is a mesmerizing and provocative film from Lucrecia Martel.

Set in a hotel at the Argentine town of Salta, the film revolves a 16-year old girl whose encounter with a visiting doctor at a medical conference is hoping to save him as he copes with the work he has to do at the conference. It’s a film that isn’t just about a girl’s exploration with her sexuality but also with her faith as she goes to a religious school where she gets the idea to help this man after he had accidentally groped her when the two were watching a man performing music with a theremin. Lucrecia Martel’s screenplay doesn’t have much of a plot as it’s really more of a study of behavior and attraction with this young woman coming-of-age in not just through her ideas of faith but also becoming aware of her sexuality. Much of it is set in the hotel where this young girl Amalia (Maria Alche) lives at with her mother Helena (Mercedes Moran) and her uncle Freddy (Alejandro Urdapilleta) as they run the place which is struggling to remain afloat.

Martel’s script also play into this growing attraction towards Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso) and Helena as the former is just a visitor for this medical conference as he is also married though is aware of his feelings for Helena. His encounter with Amalia is by sheer accident as he first thinks of her as a prostitute or something unaware that she’s Helena’s daughter. Adding to Amalia’s own growing determination to help Dr. Jano is her fascination with faith and sex is the exploration from her own best friend Josefina (Juliet Zylberberg) who has a boyfriend as she becomes intrigued by the idea of pre-marital sex as well as the idea of miracles after seeing a neighbor fall down from the second floor of their apartment naked and survive.

Martel’s direction is definitely entrancing for some of the compositions that she creates as much of it is set in this dilapidated hotel on location in Salta as well as additional locations near the town in the Salta Province of Argentina. While there are some close-ups that help play into Amalia’s own development in her fascination with sex and faith, much of Martel’s direction rely on medium and wide shots to capture the chaos that is happening with this medical conference as well as the sense of claustrophobia that they’re all in at these rooms in the hotel. There are also moments in the film that is quite offbeat yet intriguing as it relates to Amalia and Josefina’s own interest in miracles but also things that is typical with teenage girls. There aren’t a lot of camera movements in Martel’s direction as it’s more about a scene as it’s unfolding as well as the drama which includes the two first encounters between Amalia and Dr. Jano where they watch this theremin player as it’s just this innocent moment in the film.

Martel also creates moments that definitely play up the theme of sexuality and attraction but it’s only in very subtle moments as there isn’t even a lot of nudity other than a couple of full-frontal shots from men for brief moments. There are a few moments of sex as it relates to Amalia and Josefina with the latter having sex with a boyfriend but don’t reveal anything gratuitous. The dramatic climax which involves Helena and Dr. Jano doing a presentation is more about the tension that is looming between Dr. Jano and Amalia as well as outsiders about rumors involving a visitor and someone at the hotel. Yet, Martel is more about Amalia discovering herself as well as Helena dealing with the attraction she has towards the married Dr. Jano whose family had arrived for this conference. Overall, Martel creates an intoxicating and gripping film about a young woman’s fascination with sex and faith.

Cinematographer Felix Monti does excellent work with the film’s cinematography as it’s very low-key to play into the many interiors and lighting for some of the scenes inside the hotel. Editor Santiago Ricci does brilliant work with the editing as it feature some unique rhythmic cutting to play into the drama as well as some of the dramatic suspenseful moments. Art director Graciela Oderigo and set decorator Fernando Brun do fantastic work with the look of the hotel rooms as well as the pool and the classroom where Amalia and Josefina learn about miracles.

Costume designer Julio Suarez does nice work with the clothes as it is mostly casual from the more conservative look of the adults to the looser look of the kids and teenagers. The sound work of Guido Berenblum, Marcos De Aguirre, David Miranda-Hardy, and Victor Alejandro Tendler is amazing for its intricate sound mixing to play into to the atmosphere of the hotels as well as some of the quieter moments in the pool. The film’s music by Andres Gerszenzon is wonderful for its low-key score that is a mixture of piano-based music and ambient-electronic music that adds to the drama while its soundtracks consists of the theremin music and pop music from Argentina.

The casting by Nicolas Levin and Natalia Smirnoff is great as it feature some notable small roles and appearances from Monica Villa as Josefina’s mother, Leandro Stivelman as Josefina’s boyfriend Julian, Manuel Schaller as the theremin player, Marta Lubos as Freddy’s wife Mitra who runs the hotel kitchen, the duo of Arthur Goetz and Alejo Mango as a couple of visiting doctors for conference, and Mia Maestro in a terrific small role as Amalia and Josefina’s teacher. Julieta Zylberberg is fantastic as Josefina as Amalia’s best friend who is also fascinated with the ideas of sex and faith as she goes into her own exploration while keeping secrets for Amalia. Alejandro Urdapilleta is superb as Amalia’s uncle Freddy as a man who is trying to keep his family’s hotel afloat by inviting doctors for a conference as he also copes with the chaos happening at the hotel.

Maria Alche is excellent as Amalia as a 16-year old girl whose encounter with a married doctor has her eager to save him as she’s unaware of what really happened as she is caught between her own desires sexually as well as being loyal to her faith. Carlos Belloso is brilliant as Dr. Jano as a married man troubled by his own place in the world as he finds himself attracted to Helena while dealing with the chaos over the medical conference as well as Amalia’s presence. Finally, there’s Mercedes Moran in an amazing performance as Helena as Amalia’s mother who is dealing with her own loneliness and the state of her family hotel as she connect with Dr. Jano unaware of what is going on with her daughter as it’s this very restrained yet radiant performance from Moran.

La nina santa is an incredible film from Lucrecia Martel. Featuring a great cast and compelling yet provocative premise on faith and a girl exploring her sexuality, it’s a film that doesn’t play by conventions as it showcases what people will do to try and find salvation. In the end, La nina santa is a phenomenal film from Lucrecia Martel.

Lucrecia Martel Films: La Cienaga - The Headless Woman - Zama - The Auteurs #65: Lucrecia Martel

© thevoid99 2017

Wild Tales

Written and directed by Damian Szifron, Relatos Salvajes (Wild Tales) is a film with six different stories that relates to violence and vengeance where various people deal with implications of these events and themselves. The film is presented in an anthology-film style as it relates to six different stories about different people and their reaction to others where they use violence to deal with these situations. Starring Ricardo Darin, Oscar Martinez, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Erica Rivas, Rita Cortese, Julieta Zylberberg, and Dario Grandinetti. Relatos Salvajes is an absolutely insane and exhilarating film from Damian Szifron.

The film revolves six different stories of revenge and violence all taking place in Argentina as it plays into the lives of people and how they react or deal with the situations. These stories involve people in an airplane, a waitress dealing with a customer she knows and loathes, two men killing each other on the road, a demolition man having the worst moment of his life, a family undone by tragedy, and a wedding day gone horribly wrong. Though none of these stories are connected through its characters, they are connected by the same theme of vengeance and violence as Damian Szifron’s screenplay explores these ideas with elements of black comedy as well as tragedy. All of which plays into the lives of these characters and the dilemma they’re in about how to react.

Szifron’s direction is very stylish in not just the different tone he presents for each story but also in the fact that they do share similar visual traits. Notably in some of the close-ups, zoom shots, and other compositions ranging from medium to wide shots. There’s moments of intimacy in the segments in the plane as well as the family drama while there’s some very offbeat moments involving the demolition man, the two men on the road, and the sequence at the roadside café. Some of it plays into elements of suspense while some of the elements of violence range from graphic to darkly comical. Szifron’s approach to humor is very offbeat into not just some the craziness of these situations but also in how some of these characters use vengeance to either help themselves or to just create more trouble. Overall, Szifron creates a film that lives up to its namesake and a whole lot more.

Cinematographer Javier Julia does amazing work with the film‘s cinematography from some of the film‘s daytime exterior scenes in the desert and some of the countryside to some unique nighttime interior/exterior lighting scenes to help set some moods for some of the darker stories. Editors Damian Szifron and Pablo Barbieri Carrera do brilliant work with the editing as it has elements of style from jump-cuts to other stylistic rhythmic cuts to play into the humor and suspense while ending each segment with a simple cut to black. Production designer Maria Clara Notari does excellent work with the different set pieces to give each segment a different look to play into the environment of its characters.

Costume designer Ruth Fischerman does nice work with the costumes as the clothes range from casual to more posh-based clothes for the family-drama segment and the wedding segment. Sound designer Jose Luis Diaz does superb work with the sound from the different textures of sound in the many segments including the sounds of explosions in the demolition man segment. The film’s music by Gustavo Santaolalla is fantastic for its different array of music from eerie orchestral music to somber acoustic-based pieces as well as some brooding electronic pieces as the soundtrack includes bits of classical, dance, and pop music.

The casting by Javier Braier is incredible for the massive ensemble that appears in the film. For the film’s first segment in the plane, there’s brilliant performances from Dario Grandinetti as a music critic, Maria Marull as a model, and Monica Villa as a schoolteacher who are all connected for some strange reason. For the roadside café sequence, there’s superb performances from Rita Cortese as the cook, Julieta Zylberberg as the waitress with a grudge towards the customer, and Cesar Bordon as the customer with a dark and seedy past. For the road segment, there’s amazing performances from Leonardo Sbaraglia as the rich man and Walter Donado as the poor man who both fight following some insults that leads to total mayhem.

For the demolition man segment, Ricardo Darin is excellent as a man whose life goes into ruins by a series of unfortunate incidents while Nancy Duplaa is terrific as his wife who becomes alienated by his troubles. In the dramatic sequence, there’s fantastic performances from Oscar Martinez as the millionaire Mauricio, Maria Onetta as his wife, Osmar Nunez as their lawyer, Diego Velazquez as the prosecutor, and German de Silva as a groundskeeper who is willing to help them in their troubles. For the wedding segment, there’s marvelous performances from Erica Rivas and Diego Gentile in their respective roles as the bride and groom where one of whom would carry a secret that would make the wedding reception a night in hell.

Relatos Salvajes is a phenomenal film from Damian Szifron. Armed with a great cast and a provocative take on the ideas of violence and vengeance, the film is truly an off-the-wall film that isn’t afraid to go bonkers as well as extreme and dark places. Even if delves into black comedy that will make some very uncomfortable. In the end, Relatos Salvajes is a remarkable film from Damian Szifron.

© thevoid99 2015