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LA CIENAGA Send This Review to a Friend
Depicting family malaise to express a metaphor for the malaise of a country can be provocative, but there is the risk that too much malaise can be grating unless the characters are especially interesting. That's the central problem with "La Cienaga," a film from Argentina that was showcased at the New York Film Festival. It is an accomplished work by Lucrecia Martel as a first time feature director, who wrote her own screenplay. The mood is there, the acting is exemplary and the metaphor is evident, but none of the characters is particularly compelling. We can observe their dysfunctional aspects, but it is hard to care about their present or future.
Only the moment when the life of little boy hangs in the balance stirs an emotion. The story focuses on a middle class family, first seen around a swimming pool that can use a good cleaning. There is heavy drinking, and Mecha (Graciela Borges), a middle-aged woman who has one too many drops a glass and suffers severe cuts, for which she has to be taken to a hospital. Her boring and bored unfaithful husband Gregorio (Martin Adjemian) also drinks excessively. They have four teenage children, all gathered at the run-down house for the summer. A son is sleeping with the father's mistress, who threatens to come for a visit. So much for happy family life.
The story also involves Tali (Mercedes Moran), Mecha's cousin, her husband and children and their problems. The maid who slaves for Mecha and Gregorio is treated boorishly and callously, with Mecha bitching that she is stealing towels. So it goes. We observe, and the director is critical in the way she presents her subjects. The film is a collective portrait rather than a story per se and it is apparent that this is Martel's take on the larger picture in her country.
The film's title gets its name from the city in which Mecha's cousin resides. La Cienaga means The Swamp. Clear? A Cowboy Booking International release.
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