the films of Lucrecia Martel, most recently "The Headless Woman"

In December, you say

Yes, thanks to Netflix.

Ok then

i definitely preferred 'the holy girl', but don't really think that film's all that and a bag o nuts either

oh, it's not a "script" movie! That would be George Cukor's "Headless Woman of the Year"

yeah i know it's not a script movie. but it's a deliberately-obliquely-shot movie in a way i didn't appreciate.

https://thefilmstage.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Zama-620x336.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txrlcy2893Q

http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/zama-review-1202543356/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/31/zama-review-lucrecia-martel-emerges-from-the-wilderness-with-a-strange-sensual-wonder

This was a good in-depth on-location look: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/interviews/lucrecia-martel-interview-zama

saw ZAMA yesterday, and the more i am able to think about it the more i appreciate it. it reminds me most of orwell's burmese days, particluarly in the way it handles imperial ennui and melancholy. it poisons us all

I'll be seeing it on the 15th, the day of encore screenings at NYFF.

I just spent half an hour chatting to the amazing Lucrecia Martel. I smell a bit of cigar smoke now, but that's okay. pic.twitter.com/niOPfg7Jfm

— Philip Concannon (@Phil_on_Film) October 16, 2017

what did you think of zama morbs?

^It was fine, but not up to my faves of hers. Should be out in the spring i think.

I rewatched The Holy Girl last night, which I essentially forgot entirely since 2005, and Hoberman otm:

https://www.villagevoice.com/2005/04/19/far-from-heaven-2/

It's quite something, but it's hallucinatory without a source fever.

are you referring to Zama? it was by far the best thing I saw at TIFF last year.

it's hallucinatory without a source fever.

Al, could you expand on this?

Saw Zama tonight, really liked it, totally gorgeous. I like movies that kind of fall apart the farther you go into them. Would be interesting to screen back to back with Aguirre -- Martel's style is cool and detached, vs. Herzog's sweat and blood. (Not that there isn't sweat and blood in Zama, but it's all at a slight remove.)

Isn't colonialism fairly obviously the source fever here?

Loved the way Martel really brought you into this complex world - of animals and people - so that in the last half hour or so, great narrative chunks could be leapt over as the story (and the character) reached endpoint, because by then the viewer (or at least, this viewer) was totally dunked in the whole sensual experience of its colour and sound, and the sense of time fracturing at the edge of the frame.

Recent things it reminded me of - Serra's Death of Louis XIV, German's Hard to be a God, Alonso's Jauja

It impressed me, especially after I rewatched La Cienaga.

Just briefly posted about it on ILE. I liked how Martel tried to get Benedetto's take on the animal world. That amazing shot into the horse's gaze!

The llama was a shameless scene stealer.

This film wasn't 'Bressonian' in the slightest, but the way the animals were filmed did remind me of Balthazar, at times.

Intended to go see Zama today on the basis of the Aguirre and Hard to be a God references upthread but ended up seeing The Holy Girl as there's a mini Martel season going, and I can catch the former later in the week.

There was a half hour making of prior to the movie which dug into Martel's world view a bit and I really liked a lot of what she had to say, if a bit dreamy.

The film itself was a gem, the sound mixing esp. - it paired v well with the very enjoyable Novitiate which I watched last night. I was worried about the where it was heading but it ended very satisfyingly.

Isn't colonialism fairly obviously the source fever here?

Also perhaps malaria? (Finally saw this last night, and have almost no idea what to make of it, other than maybe compare it to the end of Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust?) The only Martel film I'd seen before had been La Cienaga.