Friday, December 25, 2009

The Headless Woman (Friday, December, 25, 2009) (208)

The Headless Woman is an Argentine film about a woman who gets into a small car accident when she hits a dog on a quiet country road. She seems to suffer a concussion and is a bit out of it for several days. Her family seems unaware of her situation, not even realizing that the incident has left her nearly mute and aloof. She tries to go back to the scene of the incident, thinking she hit more than just the dog, but is unable to find any more clues as to what happened to her.

Typical of many Argentine and South American films of recent years, class issues and what seems to be an upper-middle-class guilt pervades the story. Neither the woman nor any of her friends and family are lacking anything they want or need. They drive beautiful cars and live in posh houses with large, healthy families. The woman is faced with her high level when she goes to a town near the accident to ask for any clues about the crash. There she sees people living modestly without all the excess that she enjoys.

Clearly writer/director Lucrecia Martel is making a point that this woman can totally change and be barely verbal, but her life is structured in a way that few people around her are aware that anything is out of the ordinary. The woman lives in a place where despite the fact that she is a modern woman with hobbies and interests, few ask her opinion on things - or if they do, others will step in to answer for her. This detachment seems to be the center of the film and is the most interesting part of it.

Generally the film is too elliptical and rather frustrating. We do not know enough about the woman before her accident to know how she was then (was she not talkative then, so it's not a big change after the accident? Were her friends and family distant and did they never ask her any questions?). Nothing really comes together in the end. It feels like half a story, or just the beginning of one. I think this would have been an interesting opening to a larger story, but we never get more substance.

Stars: 1.5 of 4

1 comment: