The plot sounded extremely exciting when we read it, which is why we decided to add this film to our watchlist. However, upon viewing, it just wasn't anything special. Quite average really. Maybe we were expecting a pyschological thriller more like 'The Machinist' but this was completely not that. Hardly psychological and certainly not thrilling. Worth a watch if you have nothing better to do or are running low on movies to watch.
32 Reviews
Almost excellent...again
ofumalow10 December 2009
At once exquisitely crafted and exasperating, Martel's latest reflects the confused mental disintegration of a character whose problems are variably inchoate. Her crisis seems spurred by an act of accidental murder--in the countryside, she runs over something.
That it was a German Shepherd is clearly represented in one distinct post-impact shot following a prelude in which the hound is shown playing with several children. But afterward our protagonist (a dyejob-blonde, middle-aged, upper-class woman) has strange ideations of having killed a human being. Is that what really happened? Or is it just her guilt from...whatever?
There's nothing unintended in this very precisely directed movie, but at the same time its ambiguity can be frustrating. (Perhaps less so if you're better acquainted with Argentine class/race issues than me.) It's a mystery without a resolution, a thriller minus thrills. That's OK, but even as deliberate enigma "The Headless Woman" seems somewhat stillborn. (Think what Antonioni circa 1960 could have done with it!)
It's full of interesting detail yet void of larger meaning or narrative direction; intriguing in a way that stops just short of utter fascination. You can't fault the director or her actors for falling short--it's the script (also by Martel) that ends up a little too amorphous.
It's not often you see a movie that feels so close to brilliant, yet something indefinable is missing. This is a good film that perhaps in coming years will gain a reputation as an overlooked masterpiece--and while I can't sign on with that opinion right now, I can see how it might accumulate.
That it was a German Shepherd is clearly represented in one distinct post-impact shot following a prelude in which the hound is shown playing with several children. But afterward our protagonist (a dyejob-blonde, middle-aged, upper-class woman) has strange ideations of having killed a human being. Is that what really happened? Or is it just her guilt from...whatever?
There's nothing unintended in this very precisely directed movie, but at the same time its ambiguity can be frustrating. (Perhaps less so if you're better acquainted with Argentine class/race issues than me.) It's a mystery without a resolution, a thriller minus thrills. That's OK, but even as deliberate enigma "The Headless Woman" seems somewhat stillborn. (Think what Antonioni circa 1960 could have done with it!)
It's full of interesting detail yet void of larger meaning or narrative direction; intriguing in a way that stops just short of utter fascination. You can't fault the director or her actors for falling short--it's the script (also by Martel) that ends up a little too amorphous.
It's not often you see a movie that feels so close to brilliant, yet something indefinable is missing. This is a good film that perhaps in coming years will gain a reputation as an overlooked masterpiece--and while I can't sign on with that opinion right now, I can see how it might accumulate.
A movie that sits still... while you shake your fists.
fhbushor9 June 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Here's what's behind this movie - you will not get what you want.
What transpires in the movie is not so different from many other films. Someone does something and we, because we are so accustomed to themes of redemption or epiphanies, await whichever is in store for this character.
And then...
Nothing happens.
On a personal level, no other movie I've seen has so infuriated me by denying me so much. At every turn, you wait for the protagonist to awaken and come to grips with what's happened. And the threads of normalcy are what you grab for as you wait. A kid grabs a glass and drinks from it as the background conversation relates about someone becoming sick from the local water supply. So you think perhaps, this will be the catalyst. It isn't. A close relative makes a comment to the protagonist that seems innocuous, yet reveals a taboo relationship, so again, you think that this perhaps is what will propel the protagonist to a heightened awareness and cause all the other events to merge into a cathartic experience. Wrong.
Sometimes a film will play with the viewer, tickling them with the odds and ends, bits and pieces of a bigger puzzle. This film doesn't do that. It pokes you hard in the face with a stick. Taunts you. Over and over. You will gnash your teeth and scowl. You will come to hate the blindness at work here and never be sure of whether it's willful or indifferent. At every turn this movie frustrates and annoys. It is so bothersome, I can honestly say that very few people will enjoy the film and I completely understand why.
The film is intensely effective at displaying the day-to-day banalities and trivial privileges of class that cover the horror of what makes class possible. I defy anyone who watches this film to *not* want to give this woman a good hard shake! But you're denied that too - obviously. This is a very, very difficult film. Because it shows us how we all operate. We manage our lives and ourselves to ignore the privileges we enjoy. If you contemplate it for any length of time, you can't help but appreciate that adulthood is the 'management of feelings'.
Adulthood is managing our beliefs, our emotions, our network of friends, all of these. And once we've built those bubbles to live inside, it's nearly impossible to break us out of them. They're impervious to logic or to reason and whatever empathy in them that extends only to those we hold close. Everybody else is simply another thing. The only minds we care about, the only ones we 'see', are the ones we let into the bubble. This is what makes us headless. An inability to see past our privilege. We become like children, cut off from other people and living in our own little worlds, indifferent to the suffering that we might have caused, or that we could, if we tried, alleviate. But we don't. We just keep moving through life in the narrow bubbles we've made. You'll be frustrated at this movie because it will remind you that at one time, you too thought the world could be better, if only people *did* something, if only people "woke up" and saw the suffering that ignorance and indifference caused. Believe me when I say that this movie sits closer to home for many of us than we're comfortable with.
The next time you walk past that homeless person - who you likely don't even really see as a human being anymore, if you truly see them at all - think of this movie. It's that frustration, that inability to awaken to others - thats what's at the heart of this movie. A very, very fine film, from an accomplished and under-appreciated director.
What transpires in the movie is not so different from many other films. Someone does something and we, because we are so accustomed to themes of redemption or epiphanies, await whichever is in store for this character.
And then...
Nothing happens.
On a personal level, no other movie I've seen has so infuriated me by denying me so much. At every turn, you wait for the protagonist to awaken and come to grips with what's happened. And the threads of normalcy are what you grab for as you wait. A kid grabs a glass and drinks from it as the background conversation relates about someone becoming sick from the local water supply. So you think perhaps, this will be the catalyst. It isn't. A close relative makes a comment to the protagonist that seems innocuous, yet reveals a taboo relationship, so again, you think that this perhaps is what will propel the protagonist to a heightened awareness and cause all the other events to merge into a cathartic experience. Wrong.
Sometimes a film will play with the viewer, tickling them with the odds and ends, bits and pieces of a bigger puzzle. This film doesn't do that. It pokes you hard in the face with a stick. Taunts you. Over and over. You will gnash your teeth and scowl. You will come to hate the blindness at work here and never be sure of whether it's willful or indifferent. At every turn this movie frustrates and annoys. It is so bothersome, I can honestly say that very few people will enjoy the film and I completely understand why.
The film is intensely effective at displaying the day-to-day banalities and trivial privileges of class that cover the horror of what makes class possible. I defy anyone who watches this film to *not* want to give this woman a good hard shake! But you're denied that too - obviously. This is a very, very difficult film. Because it shows us how we all operate. We manage our lives and ourselves to ignore the privileges we enjoy. If you contemplate it for any length of time, you can't help but appreciate that adulthood is the 'management of feelings'.
Adulthood is managing our beliefs, our emotions, our network of friends, all of these. And once we've built those bubbles to live inside, it's nearly impossible to break us out of them. They're impervious to logic or to reason and whatever empathy in them that extends only to those we hold close. Everybody else is simply another thing. The only minds we care about, the only ones we 'see', are the ones we let into the bubble. This is what makes us headless. An inability to see past our privilege. We become like children, cut off from other people and living in our own little worlds, indifferent to the suffering that we might have caused, or that we could, if we tried, alleviate. But we don't. We just keep moving through life in the narrow bubbles we've made. You'll be frustrated at this movie because it will remind you that at one time, you too thought the world could be better, if only people *did* something, if only people "woke up" and saw the suffering that ignorance and indifference caused. Believe me when I say that this movie sits closer to home for many of us than we're comfortable with.
The next time you walk past that homeless person - who you likely don't even really see as a human being anymore, if you truly see them at all - think of this movie. It's that frustration, that inability to awaken to others - thats what's at the heart of this movie. A very, very fine film, from an accomplished and under-appreciated director.
Personal guilt and class malaise
Chris Knipp18 September 2008
Warning: Spoilers
The Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel, whose multiple-voice films 'The Swamp' and 'The Holy Child' won her an international following, turns to the interior psychology of a single woman with this new feature. Whether she succeeds as well with this new one, 'The Headless Woman'/'La mujer sin cabeza,' is an immediate question given predominantly negative reviews at this year's Cannes Festival, where it was booed at a press screening. The critics nonetheless acknowledged the film's stylistic elegance; Salon's O'Hehir, an American defender, wrote, "no one could argue that it's incompetent or implausible, or that it lacks thematic and artistic coherence." He insisted "people just didn't get what Martel was driving at, and that clearly bothered them." Of course it would, because despite the director's thinking this her clearest film, it has communication problemswhich do not detract from its interest, howeverand material for debate: what Martel sees as a study of class, Variety describes as "a psychological thriller." It's hard for viewers to see eye to eye, which is fine, but what's less fortunate is the failure to engage of the low-keyed film.
The Headless Woman begins by showing a group of urchins playing riskily by a road adjoining a canal. Later a huge rainstorm comes that causes cars to be disabled and its effect becomes important later. Along comes Veronica (the excellent, well cast Maria Onetto), a well-off dentist in a nice car driving at high speed, and she hits something big, but instead of investigating she stops, obviously shaken, and drives on to town to a hospital where she's scheduled for an X-ray. She later has a sex date with Juan Manuel (Daniel Genoud) at a hotel, but she acts dazed and disconnected, evidently deeply shaken ever since whatever happened on the road. This like Martel's previous works (especially 'The Swamp') has a whole network of people and relationships, this time a little more vague because seen through Vero's confused eyes. She leaves things and people hanging, often not even speaking and appearing to have lost her reason. Her husband Marcos (Cesar Bordon), also a dentist, offers to take on her most serious cases. She runs errands involving plants and jars for a patio. A gardener digs in the patio and finds remnants of a pool. Women friends gossip about a new swimming pool someone they know has built near a veterinary hospital and in one scene they're all there, gossiping even more.
Various friends and family members live nearby and come and go, or meet at the new pool. Juan Manuel is married to Josefina (Claudia Cantero), who is sister or cousin, perhaps, and Josefina is the mother of a plain teenager with hepatitis, Candita (Ines Efron) who has lesbian longings for Veronica. The latter has two daughters with Marcos who flit by briefly. The point may be that to Veronica none of these people really quite matter, but in the small-town Argentinian environment of these well-off people, there's no escaping them.
Finally Veronica declares to her husband and a relative that she killed someone on the road, a boy. They hasten to clear this up and say she's just imagined it. They drive to the road and find only a dead dogseen from Veronica's car earlier--the camera never shows a person on the road. From now on Veronica is coherent and sure of herself again. Her hair was bleach blond, and she now dyes it black.
A statement by the director reveals she has herself occasionally had nightmares in which she fears she has killed someone; one involved a corpse whose severed head she tried to hide. She has also commented on the growing gap between rich and poor in Argentina in recent decades.
A suggested subtext here is of upper class guilt, a crime against the poor that cannot be forgiven but is also never fully acknowledged. Veronica and her family are constantly shown being cared for and ministered to by servants and employees or simply poor people who pass by looking for work, to cart things back and forth or wash an SUVpeople who, however, don't emerge as distinctive characters.
Martel's films are good at conveying everyday confusion, families always partly in motion and partly still, lost souls. Her scenes have the specificity of random elements; they don't seem deterministic or over-calculated. She has a distinctive way of framing interiors with unconventional camera placements, and a fine sense of color. The acting here is uniformly good. There is a sense of terrible moral confusion and an anomie almost worthy of Antonioni, a mood only heightened by all the bustling about of people around the distraught and distracted central character, who seems uniquely present for being so detached. But Antonioni has been done, and though it's no crime that the thriller element fizzles, the film, despite its elegant texture, finds no clear note to end on. Finally it turns out there was a body found in the canal, but it's never clear exactly what Veronica actually hit.
Included in the NY Film Festival at Lincoln Center, October 2008.
The Headless Woman begins by showing a group of urchins playing riskily by a road adjoining a canal. Later a huge rainstorm comes that causes cars to be disabled and its effect becomes important later. Along comes Veronica (the excellent, well cast Maria Onetto), a well-off dentist in a nice car driving at high speed, and she hits something big, but instead of investigating she stops, obviously shaken, and drives on to town to a hospital where she's scheduled for an X-ray. She later has a sex date with Juan Manuel (Daniel Genoud) at a hotel, but she acts dazed and disconnected, evidently deeply shaken ever since whatever happened on the road. This like Martel's previous works (especially 'The Swamp') has a whole network of people and relationships, this time a little more vague because seen through Vero's confused eyes. She leaves things and people hanging, often not even speaking and appearing to have lost her reason. Her husband Marcos (Cesar Bordon), also a dentist, offers to take on her most serious cases. She runs errands involving plants and jars for a patio. A gardener digs in the patio and finds remnants of a pool. Women friends gossip about a new swimming pool someone they know has built near a veterinary hospital and in one scene they're all there, gossiping even more.
Various friends and family members live nearby and come and go, or meet at the new pool. Juan Manuel is married to Josefina (Claudia Cantero), who is sister or cousin, perhaps, and Josefina is the mother of a plain teenager with hepatitis, Candita (Ines Efron) who has lesbian longings for Veronica. The latter has two daughters with Marcos who flit by briefly. The point may be that to Veronica none of these people really quite matter, but in the small-town Argentinian environment of these well-off people, there's no escaping them.
Finally Veronica declares to her husband and a relative that she killed someone on the road, a boy. They hasten to clear this up and say she's just imagined it. They drive to the road and find only a dead dogseen from Veronica's car earlier--the camera never shows a person on the road. From now on Veronica is coherent and sure of herself again. Her hair was bleach blond, and she now dyes it black.
A statement by the director reveals she has herself occasionally had nightmares in which she fears she has killed someone; one involved a corpse whose severed head she tried to hide. She has also commented on the growing gap between rich and poor in Argentina in recent decades.
A suggested subtext here is of upper class guilt, a crime against the poor that cannot be forgiven but is also never fully acknowledged. Veronica and her family are constantly shown being cared for and ministered to by servants and employees or simply poor people who pass by looking for work, to cart things back and forth or wash an SUVpeople who, however, don't emerge as distinctive characters.
Martel's films are good at conveying everyday confusion, families always partly in motion and partly still, lost souls. Her scenes have the specificity of random elements; they don't seem deterministic or over-calculated. She has a distinctive way of framing interiors with unconventional camera placements, and a fine sense of color. The acting here is uniformly good. There is a sense of terrible moral confusion and an anomie almost worthy of Antonioni, a mood only heightened by all the bustling about of people around the distraught and distracted central character, who seems uniquely present for being so detached. But Antonioni has been done, and though it's no crime that the thriller element fizzles, the film, despite its elegant texture, finds no clear note to end on. Finally it turns out there was a body found in the canal, but it's never clear exactly what Veronica actually hit.
Included in the NY Film Festival at Lincoln Center, October 2008.
Head's Up to the undercurrent rushing beneath the surface of "The Headless Woman".
jtncsmistad27 October 2016
Wow. A lot going' on here. So let's jump right into a hearty but brief dissection of the unusual and unorthodox Argentinean drama "The Headless Woman".
A well-to-do dentist (María Onetto in a mesmerizing performance) hits something with her car on a dirt back road. A dog? A kid? It's not made expressly clear as she doesn't go back to investigate, instead choosing to drive onward. This occurs in the first few minutes of the story. For the rest of the film we watch as this woman descends ever deeper into a kind of detached and dazed mental and emotional disintegration. Metaphorically, she has "lost her head". Is she riddled by guilt? Fear? Uncertainty? Anything and everything? Writer/Director Lucrecia Martel never brings this entirely into focus, not unlike several of the fuzzily photographed scenes she utilizes to tell her peculiar tale.
One thing for sure, however. Martel has intentionally fashioned a treatise on an indoctrinated class separation between "the haves" and "the have-nots". She decisively presents this socioeconomic chasm as firmly entrenched institution in her native Argentina.
What is not nearly as obvious is the interpretation of "The Headless Woman" as allegorical commentary. And while, granted, this may be a stretch, it is not out of line by any means, either. To wit, Martel seems to be suggesting that this woman's capacity to put a potential tragedy behind her virtually as if it had never even happened is at least effectively similar to an apparent reluctance by many in Argentina to recognize the appalling and systematic mass executions by the country's government of those classified as dissident and subversive from the mid-1970's through the mid-'80's.
The closing blurred images of "The Headless Woman" depict a bewildered soul, one by way of the machinations of those around her who possess the power inherent to make unpleasant things "go away", is free to go on about the privileged preoccupations of fraternizing and partying with those of "her kind". And may the past be damned.
Or, more accurately, as we have come to understand over the trancelike course of events heretofore chronicled, and which are almost unquestionably still fated to linger in the memory of this descendant of the fortunate, damning.
A well-to-do dentist (María Onetto in a mesmerizing performance) hits something with her car on a dirt back road. A dog? A kid? It's not made expressly clear as she doesn't go back to investigate, instead choosing to drive onward. This occurs in the first few minutes of the story. For the rest of the film we watch as this woman descends ever deeper into a kind of detached and dazed mental and emotional disintegration. Metaphorically, she has "lost her head". Is she riddled by guilt? Fear? Uncertainty? Anything and everything? Writer/Director Lucrecia Martel never brings this entirely into focus, not unlike several of the fuzzily photographed scenes she utilizes to tell her peculiar tale.
One thing for sure, however. Martel has intentionally fashioned a treatise on an indoctrinated class separation between "the haves" and "the have-nots". She decisively presents this socioeconomic chasm as firmly entrenched institution in her native Argentina.
What is not nearly as obvious is the interpretation of "The Headless Woman" as allegorical commentary. And while, granted, this may be a stretch, it is not out of line by any means, either. To wit, Martel seems to be suggesting that this woman's capacity to put a potential tragedy behind her virtually as if it had never even happened is at least effectively similar to an apparent reluctance by many in Argentina to recognize the appalling and systematic mass executions by the country's government of those classified as dissident and subversive from the mid-1970's through the mid-'80's.
The closing blurred images of "The Headless Woman" depict a bewildered soul, one by way of the machinations of those around her who possess the power inherent to make unpleasant things "go away", is free to go on about the privileged preoccupations of fraternizing and partying with those of "her kind". And may the past be damned.
Or, more accurately, as we have come to understand over the trancelike course of events heretofore chronicled, and which are almost unquestionably still fated to linger in the memory of this descendant of the fortunate, damning.
Magnificent and audacious
howard.schumann4 October 2009
Argentine politics from the 1970s and class differences of today play an important role in Lucrecia Martel's third film, The Headless Woman, the story of a middle-aged woman refusing to confront the truth about a hit and run accident. Shown at the Vancouver Film Festival, The Headless Woman, like Martel's earlier works, defies conventional cinematic language and can be challenging to appreciate on first viewing. Characters come and go, seemingly unrelated incidents pile up, and we hardly know who is who, but little of that ultimately matters. What is more important is that Martel has taken us effortlessly into the head of the main character as persuasively as any film in recent memory and has turned one woman's failings into a clear and simple statement of her own vision.
The Headless Woman opens on a rural road in Salta Province in northwest Argentina where four young boys and their dog are engaged in risky play along the highway as a car approaches. The atmosphere is one that portends danger. Meanwhile, a group of friends prepare to leave a gathering. Children are being shepherded in and out of cars while one mother, Josefina (Claudia Cantero) models her eyelashes in the car window. One woman (Maria Onetto) stands out because of the bleached blond color of her flowing hair that comes down to her shoulders The woman, Veronica (called Vero by her acquaintances), runs a dental clinic with her brother but we know nothing else about her life, past or present.
While driving home by herself, she hears the ring of her cell phone and is momentarily distracted from the road. Suddenly she feels a thud and her head is thrust backward, then forward onto the dash. Whether or not she has hit something, a dog or a person, is unclear because the woman is frozen into inaction for what seems to be an eternity. She stops the car but is unable or unwilling to step outside to see what happened. She thinks she sees a dog in the rear view mirror but does not turn around to get a closer look. Eventually she gets out of the car but simply stands there while the first drops of a heavy storm pound the windshield and we can see mysterious fingerprints on the side window.
Soon she drives off to be x-rayed at the local hospital while the radio plays Nana Mouskouri's "Soleil Soleil", a song that was popular in the seventies. She appears dazed and barely recognizes the people around her but continues smiling incessantly. Her husband Marcos (Cesar Bordon) notices her disorientation but learns nothing about that night until much later when she tells him that she may have killed someone. Juan Manuel (Daniel Genoud), her husband's cousin and occasional lover, calls the police and tells her there were no reports of an accident on that night but one week later, a boy's body is retrieved from the canal with no indication of a cause of death. The boy was one of the children who worked for her gardener. Immediately her friends cover all traces of her possible involvement in what could be a potential crime. X-rays disappear as well as records of her hotel room tryst with Juan Manuel. Similarly, her car is repaired with all traces of the accident removed.
The Headless Woman is grounded in Vero's inability to focus on the reality of the life happening all around her. She is a detached observer rather than a participant, operating in a world of privilege where her every need is met by her extended family or by dark-skinned servants and boys begging to give a car wash for something to eat. In that milieu, Vero can easily avoid taking responsibility for her actions whether it be cheating on her husband or failing to investigate a car accident. Like the pampered middle class of her country, she is deaf to the suffering around her, and her decision to forget may be a metaphor for the collective amnesia of her country of the torture and murder of thousands during the dictatorship of the seventies.
Martel has stated that her aesthetic decision to link the 70s with the current time is a statement calling attention to the fact that the blindness of the past continues to the present day in the growing disparity between rich and poor. That she has shaken us and provoked us to look at unpleasant facts about her characters, the world, and perhaps even about ourselves is a hint as to why her magnificent and audacious film was booed at the Cannes Film Festival.
The Headless Woman opens on a rural road in Salta Province in northwest Argentina where four young boys and their dog are engaged in risky play along the highway as a car approaches. The atmosphere is one that portends danger. Meanwhile, a group of friends prepare to leave a gathering. Children are being shepherded in and out of cars while one mother, Josefina (Claudia Cantero) models her eyelashes in the car window. One woman (Maria Onetto) stands out because of the bleached blond color of her flowing hair that comes down to her shoulders The woman, Veronica (called Vero by her acquaintances), runs a dental clinic with her brother but we know nothing else about her life, past or present.
While driving home by herself, she hears the ring of her cell phone and is momentarily distracted from the road. Suddenly she feels a thud and her head is thrust backward, then forward onto the dash. Whether or not she has hit something, a dog or a person, is unclear because the woman is frozen into inaction for what seems to be an eternity. She stops the car but is unable or unwilling to step outside to see what happened. She thinks she sees a dog in the rear view mirror but does not turn around to get a closer look. Eventually she gets out of the car but simply stands there while the first drops of a heavy storm pound the windshield and we can see mysterious fingerprints on the side window.
Soon she drives off to be x-rayed at the local hospital while the radio plays Nana Mouskouri's "Soleil Soleil", a song that was popular in the seventies. She appears dazed and barely recognizes the people around her but continues smiling incessantly. Her husband Marcos (Cesar Bordon) notices her disorientation but learns nothing about that night until much later when she tells him that she may have killed someone. Juan Manuel (Daniel Genoud), her husband's cousin and occasional lover, calls the police and tells her there were no reports of an accident on that night but one week later, a boy's body is retrieved from the canal with no indication of a cause of death. The boy was one of the children who worked for her gardener. Immediately her friends cover all traces of her possible involvement in what could be a potential crime. X-rays disappear as well as records of her hotel room tryst with Juan Manuel. Similarly, her car is repaired with all traces of the accident removed.
The Headless Woman is grounded in Vero's inability to focus on the reality of the life happening all around her. She is a detached observer rather than a participant, operating in a world of privilege where her every need is met by her extended family or by dark-skinned servants and boys begging to give a car wash for something to eat. In that milieu, Vero can easily avoid taking responsibility for her actions whether it be cheating on her husband or failing to investigate a car accident. Like the pampered middle class of her country, she is deaf to the suffering around her, and her decision to forget may be a metaphor for the collective amnesia of her country of the torture and murder of thousands during the dictatorship of the seventies.
Martel has stated that her aesthetic decision to link the 70s with the current time is a statement calling attention to the fact that the blindness of the past continues to the present day in the growing disparity between rich and poor. That she has shaken us and provoked us to look at unpleasant facts about her characters, the world, and perhaps even about ourselves is a hint as to why her magnificent and audacious film was booed at the Cannes Film Festival.
Disappointing!
jorge_nital1 September 2008
OK, how can I begin with this...
First, I was expecting lots from this movie, now that I'm more used to Argentinian's films. But oh my God... this 80 (sufferable) minutes wasn't on my expectations.
The story & the way it is shot, yes, is beautiful and completely interesting, and some people will say that the slow pace is necessary... Well, I DON'T think so... the slow pace made me wanna leave the theater since the first 30 minutes, (and actually some people at the theater left) I know Martel normally uses this kind of rhythm in her movies, but in a completely different and interesting way!! (as in La Ciénaga & La Niña Santa) and usually (apparently) nothing happens, BUT everything is happening, right there in front of you.
Well, in this one, apparently nothing happens, and actually... NOTHING is happening.
And all that technical things, like using that kind of lenses and that focus, (that's the only way to show what the character is feeling/thinking?? Don't think so!) and cutting the character's head all the time... Well, there is a moment when enough is definitely, enough.
Bored me to the core, HATE WHEN PEOPLE DO FILMS FOR THEMSELVES BUT NOT SO INTERESTING FILMS FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO SEE.
The plot (apparently) was interesting, and (again I repeat) she knows how to shoot and camera movements are beautiful, but come on!! Tell me this story in 40 minutes not in 80!!
And all that lesbian stuff... totally and completely unnecessary.
If you really want to see it (as I did), wait till it crashes video clubs.
First, I was expecting lots from this movie, now that I'm more used to Argentinian's films. But oh my God... this 80 (sufferable) minutes wasn't on my expectations.
The story & the way it is shot, yes, is beautiful and completely interesting, and some people will say that the slow pace is necessary... Well, I DON'T think so... the slow pace made me wanna leave the theater since the first 30 minutes, (and actually some people at the theater left) I know Martel normally uses this kind of rhythm in her movies, but in a completely different and interesting way!! (as in La Ciénaga & La Niña Santa) and usually (apparently) nothing happens, BUT everything is happening, right there in front of you.
Well, in this one, apparently nothing happens, and actually... NOTHING is happening.
And all that technical things, like using that kind of lenses and that focus, (that's the only way to show what the character is feeling/thinking?? Don't think so!) and cutting the character's head all the time... Well, there is a moment when enough is definitely, enough.
Bored me to the core, HATE WHEN PEOPLE DO FILMS FOR THEMSELVES BUT NOT SO INTERESTING FILMS FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO SEE.
The plot (apparently) was interesting, and (again I repeat) she knows how to shoot and camera movements are beautiful, but come on!! Tell me this story in 40 minutes not in 80!!
And all that lesbian stuff... totally and completely unnecessary.
If you really want to see it (as I did), wait till it crashes video clubs.
You are the detective
diegorosd4 May 2014
Warning: Spoilers
The reproof that you never quite know what Vero hit on the road simply means that you're not paying enough attention. The movie does a great job of suggesting what happened, from the time we see the child's hand print on the window, immediately following the accident, until the very end. Each frame of the film becomes subject for investigation...a space for the director to bury her clues. One simply has to play the part of the detective. You'll see that there is a perfectly straightforward explanation to everything that happens in this film and the incident is eventually wrapped up rather neatly by the end. This is my abridged version...Vero hits both a dog and a boy on the road. The dog lays dead on the road while the boy falls to the (then) dry canal. Five minutes after the accident it starts to rain. It rains all weekend and the canal fills up with water. The body of the boy has begun to move, drifting away with the current of the canal. This is why when Vero tells her husband that she killed someone on the road and they go back to look for the body, they only find the dead dog. Also, she is informed that there have been no reports of an accident on that road. Vero seems to be getting over the incident and to believe that she may have been mistaken after all. "It was nothing
" she tells her nephew's friend. When they go buy the pots for the plants for the first time, however, things begin to change. First, the man who sells the pots tells Vero that there is a boy who hasn't been coming to work. And then, on the drive back they see the firemen trying to get something out of the canal - it is the boy's body that Vero hit on the road. Vero's husband, cousin and brother get together and cover the whole thing up, destroying all evidence - getting the car repaired, removing documents from the hospital and the hotel. The newspapers say the boy drowned
Vero knows otherwise but you can see how she tries to convince herself of the lie over and over again. This is a film about ghosts - and the madness of blocking out the truth and placing a lie in its place. The water and the canal act as a beautiful metaphor for the way that our mind moves undesirable truths to the back of the head and tries to keep them there from surfacing. Vero seems to finally find a way to cope with the incident by changing her hair color, as though she could find some vindication in bringing her look a notch closer to the native population. "I did it myself" she tells her cousin's wife. "Oh, you're brave!" she responds. Both women react to the subtext - Vero is a coward and everyone knows about what happened. Yet everyone is willing to keep it under the surface, unspoken, and in their passivity the entire clan has become her accomplice. When Vero goes through the crystal doors in the end and into the room where they're holding a party, she seems to be walking into a space suspended from ordinary reality, with its own set of rules and alliances. The disappearance of bodies and their cover-up is a very preponderant aspect of Argentine history and here plays itself out through a more banal situation. Yet what's really fruitful in Martel's conceit is that by placing her main character in a state of complete disorientation, we perceive the strangeness of her quotidian reality along with her. Suddenly, small, insignificant, daily exchanges between different class members come to the fore with all their anachronism, strangeness and violence.
A convoluted melodrama
ashishjoshi-0451724 May 2021
The Headless Woman (2008) is about a well-off, middle-aged woman Veronica (Maria Onetto), who, while driving home one afternoon, hits someone or something with her her car. What follows is a study of guilt and the fragile nature of our relationships with people as well as the difficulty of reaching out to others in an increasingly depersonalized world.
Directed by the talented Lucrecia Martel, the film is slow, plodding and concludes with no clear denouement. There are pointers that suggest that Veronica had dreamed up the entire episode. Either way, it is never really made clear. A disappointing drama with a lot of Freudian touches.
Directed by the talented Lucrecia Martel, the film is slow, plodding and concludes with no clear denouement. There are pointers that suggest that Veronica had dreamed up the entire episode. Either way, it is never really made clear. A disappointing drama with a lot of Freudian touches.
Boring
kevinjosephbrinkoconnor25 March 2020
I'm a huge fan of Lucrecia Martel but this film is boring. Her other films are much better in my opinion.
I did not like the main character, Vero, at all, and I don't see the point of showing her throughout the whole film. She just walks around in a daze and stares off into space. After twenty minutes of this, I could really take or leave the film.
Anyone want to explain the meaning of this film to me? It either went over my head, or doesn't have any meaning!
I did not like the main character, Vero, at all, and I don't see the point of showing her throughout the whole film. She just walks around in a daze and stares off into space. After twenty minutes of this, I could really take or leave the film.
Anyone want to explain the meaning of this film to me? It either went over my head, or doesn't have any meaning!
A map in this woman's head.
ser_insociable21 September 2008
Vero (Maria Onetto) has run over something while traveling back home, but she's totally scared and shocked to stop and watch (was it a boy or a dog?). Instead, she just goes on... from that moment,for Vero its time to try to forget.
Blames, ghosts, fears and uncertainties turn the third Lucrecia Martel's film into a masterpiece which will divide even to her fans. There are many feelings around the story and no one is completely shown or expressed. The clues to find out what Vero run over slowly appear but don't expect to understand clearly what happened, and neither understand what is she thinking nor feeling. Her head seems having stayed on the road where she had the accident and now is everything is dark and confused.
Lucrecia Martel's camera shoots the story in a society where the social differences are clear, but their characters are not aware of it.
The performances are quite good. Maria Onetto is so expressive! all of them are really involved with the film. Even Inés Efrón is good! - because I still cant understand why critics said she was excellent in 'XXY'.
As I said, 'The headless woman' is not for everyone, ''it is confused ,too experimental and not totally resolved'' some wrote. But trust me, it's intelligent, different and sensitive. It is a road to nowhere, it is a map without any road. Because she has lost her head in that accident and as a viewer you just follow the road you may feel is the right to understand Vero and the story.
Thanks Lucrecia!... again.
10/10
Blames, ghosts, fears and uncertainties turn the third Lucrecia Martel's film into a masterpiece which will divide even to her fans. There are many feelings around the story and no one is completely shown or expressed. The clues to find out what Vero run over slowly appear but don't expect to understand clearly what happened, and neither understand what is she thinking nor feeling. Her head seems having stayed on the road where she had the accident and now is everything is dark and confused.
Lucrecia Martel's camera shoots the story in a society where the social differences are clear, but their characters are not aware of it.
The performances are quite good. Maria Onetto is so expressive! all of them are really involved with the film. Even Inés Efrón is good! - because I still cant understand why critics said she was excellent in 'XXY'.
As I said, 'The headless woman' is not for everyone, ''it is confused ,too experimental and not totally resolved'' some wrote. But trust me, it's intelligent, different and sensitive. It is a road to nowhere, it is a map without any road. Because she has lost her head in that accident and as a viewer you just follow the road you may feel is the right to understand Vero and the story.
Thanks Lucrecia!... again.
10/10
Interesting If Unsatisfying
Pbearadactyl19 November 2013
This is definitely a strange film. It is certainly not for everyone, but it is not without anything good. To say this film has a story is like saying The Tree of Life has a plot. True but misleading. This movie does not follow any traditional narrative structure and lacks a clear resolution. It is written as if you are following a women as she goes through her daily life and as the film goes on it feels less like a film and more like a strangely filmed documentary. It has a unique visual style that heightens the sense of confusion felt by the protagonist by utilizing long takes that keep her in the frame, but cut off most of the action. It can feel at times like it is being strangely filmed for no good reason other than to be different. If you are looking for a strong story and/or plot you will be disappointed, but you should judge the film on its own terms and try to appreciate what its trying to do. It is by no means great and if you not are a fan of these kinds of films then you should avoid this one, but is at the very least an visual interesting film if somewhat narratively weak.
You know you want to endure me.
peter-jacobson-121 August 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I'm really puzzled by the enthusiasm for this film. Like, what are some of you really seeing in this? I defy you to see this movie again. Seems like it went over best with American film buffs who want to prove they 'get' foreign film and can sit through anything or men who just like a blonde heroines.
I liked 2 shots of the motorbikes alongside car windows and perspectives splitting the door and inside of the woman's home. But if you were in this for THAT then watch 10 minutes of Douglas Sirk instead.
I am no stranger to South American literature and film but I found this painful and only barely intriguing. I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent. I watched every frame of this thing but I mean damn. So the goal here is make characters bland/uninteresting as possible, put them in barely memorable interactions/situations, no music to speak of, uninteresting exteriors and interiors...and then I'm supposed to be super-gripped that one of the boys didn't come in to work! Of course! Toe on the line of 'who cares'. Like why are we supposed to care about this woman? Her non-reactions are kinda interesting but there's barely an emotional connection to be had through a lot of this. Tell me I'm wrong. I didn't appreciate my 70s style art film punishment properly! The rewards of understand/recognition are so slight here.
You really look for these values in your high art? So you're absolutely sure this isn't in any way ..lazy? You really found this powerfully conceptual? This is from a whole swath of avant garde film/music/art that prides itself on, gee I don't know, hating the audience. It's contemptuous. Super tedious and played out and adolescent. The last scene where you see the woman at the gathering in among the other guests and obscured from a distance. The filmmaker is literally denying the audience access to the scene at hand. It's a perfect summation of the forced removal of this film. Obnoxious.
Holden's Times review is ridiculous. 'rain soaked'. Hardly. Two maybe three scenes with rain? "Maddeningly enigmatic puzzle" or just maddening? Just because something is super conceptual doesn't necessarily make it impactful or particularly meaningful. I liked some of the ideas in here about Argentina's history and indifference and bourgeois boredom but this was a bit too obtuse for me. So am I glad that I gleaned some meaning out of this? Only maybe. Holden's doing A LOT of explaining here.
This movie is kind of like art that's pleased with itself to do almost nothing for the eye and comes accompanied by a huge and detailed textual explanation/defense. Kinda yawn.
I liked 2 shots of the motorbikes alongside car windows and perspectives splitting the door and inside of the woman's home. But if you were in this for THAT then watch 10 minutes of Douglas Sirk instead.
I am no stranger to South American literature and film but I found this painful and only barely intriguing. I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent. I watched every frame of this thing but I mean damn. So the goal here is make characters bland/uninteresting as possible, put them in barely memorable interactions/situations, no music to speak of, uninteresting exteriors and interiors...and then I'm supposed to be super-gripped that one of the boys didn't come in to work! Of course! Toe on the line of 'who cares'. Like why are we supposed to care about this woman? Her non-reactions are kinda interesting but there's barely an emotional connection to be had through a lot of this. Tell me I'm wrong. I didn't appreciate my 70s style art film punishment properly! The rewards of understand/recognition are so slight here.
You really look for these values in your high art? So you're absolutely sure this isn't in any way ..lazy? You really found this powerfully conceptual? This is from a whole swath of avant garde film/music/art that prides itself on, gee I don't know, hating the audience. It's contemptuous. Super tedious and played out and adolescent. The last scene where you see the woman at the gathering in among the other guests and obscured from a distance. The filmmaker is literally denying the audience access to the scene at hand. It's a perfect summation of the forced removal of this film. Obnoxious.
Holden's Times review is ridiculous. 'rain soaked'. Hardly. Two maybe three scenes with rain? "Maddeningly enigmatic puzzle" or just maddening? Just because something is super conceptual doesn't necessarily make it impactful or particularly meaningful. I liked some of the ideas in here about Argentina's history and indifference and bourgeois boredom but this was a bit too obtuse for me. So am I glad that I gleaned some meaning out of this? Only maybe. Holden's doing A LOT of explaining here.
This movie is kind of like art that's pleased with itself to do almost nothing for the eye and comes accompanied by a huge and detailed textual explanation/defense. Kinda yawn.
Lots of Symbolism
ellenkrokosky24 November 2014
This review will be very short.
I found the film fascinating. It has a rhythm that is present in Martel's other film, La Ciénaga (2002) and is also filmed mid range. Martel's films are recognizable as being hers without prior knowledge.
I notice none of the other reviewers mentioned the symbolism that is present throughout the movie, most notably water - the characters are always going to take showers, or mention the prospect of rain, or are thirsty. Also, they always seem to be in confined spaces - a car, a small room, the husband's new swim trunks are too tight. I was fascinated by the symbolism, but have not found anyone to discuss it and try to interpret it with.
As with La Ciénaga, La Mujer Sin Cabeza, is overall a fascinating view of Argentine upper middle class family life.
I found the film fascinating. It has a rhythm that is present in Martel's other film, La Ciénaga (2002) and is also filmed mid range. Martel's films are recognizable as being hers without prior knowledge.
I notice none of the other reviewers mentioned the symbolism that is present throughout the movie, most notably water - the characters are always going to take showers, or mention the prospect of rain, or are thirsty. Also, they always seem to be in confined spaces - a car, a small room, the husband's new swim trunks are too tight. I was fascinated by the symbolism, but have not found anyone to discuss it and try to interpret it with.
As with La Ciénaga, La Mujer Sin Cabeza, is overall a fascinating view of Argentine upper middle class family life.
La Mujer Sin Cabeza is Brilliant
emeiserloh20 September 2009
Martel is quickly becoming a master of her own filmic sensibility, which I might call the "art of eavesdropping cinema," and she makes consummate use of something inherent to the medium to take us inside the characters and content of stories that have almost nothing to do with traditional plot points.
As an audience, we are all eavesdroppers (or voyeurs) when we watch a movie. And Martel's sensibility, or way of telling a story, is not only to provide clues to what she is investigating, but to inform us with what she considers important about it. There is a bit of Hitchcock (Rear Window comes to mind), and certainly some of Altman's audio technique around conversation. There is also an exploration of neurosis that one might liken to Almodovar (her producer), yet without the bold, soap operatic farce. And there is also something of Bergman and Antonioni.
La Mujer Sin Cabeza (while not my favorite of her films) is still a sure step forward as a filmmaker. This is not only her most focused film, but it makes use of a more developed cinematic technique than either of her previous two films. Strangely, it has not been received as well. The problem, I believe, has much to due to the predisposition of most film viewers, who not only lack of patience, but the ability to adjust to a film operating in ways they are not accustomed to.
Martel's narratives may seem disjointed at first, as they jump from one scene to another without obvious connection, but they are extremely well thought out. The problem, as I said, has more to do with confounded viewer expectations, and the inability to adapt to a different approach in cinematic narrative, one that is very appropriate to the content of Martel's design. For the uninitiated, her films benefit from a second viewing, if only because what at first seems insignificant or disconnected is actually very important, and provides access to her dry subtle satire.
The power of "Mujer Sin Cabeza," (as with all films) is grounded in our perceptions of the main character's experience (or our experience of her perceptions), which not only infect us with her mental / emotional state, but draw us into the kind of life that she leads, in the balance, providing us a window into modern day Argentina.
Here, we are also made aware of a social system in the midst of decay, being held together by the ever more twisted and frayed threads of a colonial past that seeks preservation, in spite of increasing moral dysfunction, and the inability to take responsibility for anything that interferes with the social system beyond making it disappear...
As an audience, we are all eavesdroppers (or voyeurs) when we watch a movie. And Martel's sensibility, or way of telling a story, is not only to provide clues to what she is investigating, but to inform us with what she considers important about it. There is a bit of Hitchcock (Rear Window comes to mind), and certainly some of Altman's audio technique around conversation. There is also an exploration of neurosis that one might liken to Almodovar (her producer), yet without the bold, soap operatic farce. And there is also something of Bergman and Antonioni.
La Mujer Sin Cabeza (while not my favorite of her films) is still a sure step forward as a filmmaker. This is not only her most focused film, but it makes use of a more developed cinematic technique than either of her previous two films. Strangely, it has not been received as well. The problem, I believe, has much to due to the predisposition of most film viewers, who not only lack of patience, but the ability to adjust to a film operating in ways they are not accustomed to.
Martel's narratives may seem disjointed at first, as they jump from one scene to another without obvious connection, but they are extremely well thought out. The problem, as I said, has more to do with confounded viewer expectations, and the inability to adapt to a different approach in cinematic narrative, one that is very appropriate to the content of Martel's design. For the uninitiated, her films benefit from a second viewing, if only because what at first seems insignificant or disconnected is actually very important, and provides access to her dry subtle satire.
The power of "Mujer Sin Cabeza," (as with all films) is grounded in our perceptions of the main character's experience (or our experience of her perceptions), which not only infect us with her mental / emotional state, but draw us into the kind of life that she leads, in the balance, providing us a window into modern day Argentina.
Here, we are also made aware of a social system in the midst of decay, being held together by the ever more twisted and frayed threads of a colonial past that seeks preservation, in spite of increasing moral dysfunction, and the inability to take responsibility for anything that interferes with the social system beyond making it disappear...
What a waste of time
Groverdox13 October 2015
This is one of those movies that are predicated on something that may or may not have happened, and the implications of it happening or not happening and the way people deal with alarming ambiguity around things they could very well be guilty of...
Or not.
Haneke is the master of this type of movie: his stories always begin with a question that isn't answered, but by the end, you don't care, because you realise it's not that question that matters, but the questions it leads to, which are actually more important.
This movie is an example of that type of filmmaking handled very, very badly. It is simple laziness on the behalf of the director that the central question is never answered; indeed, the movie is so lazy that no other questions are asked. If you plan to see it, you ought to savour the moment of central ambiguity, where maybe something happened or maybe it didn't. Throughout the rest of the hour-and-a-half run time, you won't find yourself wondering that again, because there is no doubt in your mind for the rest of the movie that nothing is happening, and of course you know the central question is never going to be resolved. The filmmaker obviously saw some Haneke and realised she doesn't really need plot or characters or resolution to make a movie; people will watch a listless waste of time like this film and come out pretending they saw something in it because they don't want to look stupid.
Well, I'll save you the time: the empress wears no clothes.
Or not.
Haneke is the master of this type of movie: his stories always begin with a question that isn't answered, but by the end, you don't care, because you realise it's not that question that matters, but the questions it leads to, which are actually more important.
This movie is an example of that type of filmmaking handled very, very badly. It is simple laziness on the behalf of the director that the central question is never answered; indeed, the movie is so lazy that no other questions are asked. If you plan to see it, you ought to savour the moment of central ambiguity, where maybe something happened or maybe it didn't. Throughout the rest of the hour-and-a-half run time, you won't find yourself wondering that again, because there is no doubt in your mind for the rest of the movie that nothing is happening, and of course you know the central question is never going to be resolved. The filmmaker obviously saw some Haneke and realised she doesn't really need plot or characters or resolution to make a movie; people will watch a listless waste of time like this film and come out pretending they saw something in it because they don't want to look stupid.
Well, I'll save you the time: the empress wears no clothes.
"It's nothing"
Quinoa19844 July 2010
The Headless Woman moves to the beat of its own drummer, which is Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel, and if one is able to go with it it's quite an existential trip. Existential by which I mean a character's actions have consequences - or, if they don't, there is still the lingering sensation that they do. In this case a woman, Vero (Maria Onetto), hits something (or someone, an animal or a person, most likely a person), but keeps driving on. We don't really know what she hit either as Martel keeps the camera moving away from the person or thing from a great distance. It could be one of the children we see playing in the first scene in the film. Or it could be one of the dogs which Vero's husband or friend or other makes light of. Could be just a gigantic damn pot-hole. Who knows?
The film moves along like an existential parable, or, to put a more apt comparison, Antonioni's L'Avventura. We see something happen early in the film, and the rest of the runtime is spent with a character who keeps trying to face up to what happened, even as the details of the event and what happened slip away and the mundane quality of life takes over once again. We're not directed to the overarching issue of a real 'plot', just little things happening around Vero. She's in a bathroom soon after the accident cleaning herself up and in the background we hear dialog that could be referring to her about an accident, but isn't. She's in a car with someone passing by right where the accident was, and firemen are looking at at a pipe that's clogged (presumably from the storm) to see what it is. Could be anything, could be nothing. Who knows anything?
The Headless Woman is not for the impatient; even at 87 minutes it can be tiresome to see nothing exactly "happen" except a middle-aged woman with distinctly frizzy blonde hair (helping to also make an incredible poster image) quietly fretting about what happened, while her family and friends continue on with whatever is they do in their sort of bourgeois existence, and she goes back to work as a dentist. It's safe to say even I got a little fidgety at times. But I was never really bored, and her performance Onetto's performance kept me going even when the mundane took over. What happens when there are no consequences, Martel might be asking? Can one wipe away something like a hit-and-run when there's little left of evidence as to what was or wasn't there? It becomes a minor issue as the film goes on, being almost nothing in the last ten minutes.
But the film itself matters because it's finely shot (the cinematographer should have gotten all the awards he could get for his subtle and carefully haunted lighting and framing), and the tone is so assured. This is a mature film dealing with a subject that seems like what it is, a situation. A niche film that, when it works, is brilliant, and when it doesn't still looks pretty. Like Antonioni.
The film moves along like an existential parable, or, to put a more apt comparison, Antonioni's L'Avventura. We see something happen early in the film, and the rest of the runtime is spent with a character who keeps trying to face up to what happened, even as the details of the event and what happened slip away and the mundane quality of life takes over once again. We're not directed to the overarching issue of a real 'plot', just little things happening around Vero. She's in a bathroom soon after the accident cleaning herself up and in the background we hear dialog that could be referring to her about an accident, but isn't. She's in a car with someone passing by right where the accident was, and firemen are looking at at a pipe that's clogged (presumably from the storm) to see what it is. Could be anything, could be nothing. Who knows anything?
The Headless Woman is not for the impatient; even at 87 minutes it can be tiresome to see nothing exactly "happen" except a middle-aged woman with distinctly frizzy blonde hair (helping to also make an incredible poster image) quietly fretting about what happened, while her family and friends continue on with whatever is they do in their sort of bourgeois existence, and she goes back to work as a dentist. It's safe to say even I got a little fidgety at times. But I was never really bored, and her performance Onetto's performance kept me going even when the mundane took over. What happens when there are no consequences, Martel might be asking? Can one wipe away something like a hit-and-run when there's little left of evidence as to what was or wasn't there? It becomes a minor issue as the film goes on, being almost nothing in the last ten minutes.
But the film itself matters because it's finely shot (the cinematographer should have gotten all the awards he could get for his subtle and carefully haunted lighting and framing), and the tone is so assured. This is a mature film dealing with a subject that seems like what it is, a situation. A niche film that, when it works, is brilliant, and when it doesn't still looks pretty. Like Antonioni.
I ought to have my head examined for watching this
jordondave-280859 February 2023
(2008) The Headless Woman/ La mujer sin cabeza
(In Spanish with English subtitles)
PSYCHOLOGICAL CRIME DRAMA
Co-produced, written and directed by Lucrecia Martel, an extremely slow experience which all could've been said 30 minutes earlier, centers on some impoverished kids playing at an open outfield on a very hot day. The next scene shows a middle aged woman deciding to go home, she then hears a big thud when trying to get something while driving. And upon finally coming home, she neither can recall whether or not she really hit or killed someone, and her conscience slowly starts to take control of her. I have no idea what to make about this film since a boy was hit, but it's like no one reports about it until many days later, and then soon finding out that it may not be her that had run him over, meaning that the overall effect of the movie is so shallow, whereas, I as a viewers, would rather want to know about the boy in question than the lady who may have or may not have anything to do with it.
Co-produced, written and directed by Lucrecia Martel, an extremely slow experience which all could've been said 30 minutes earlier, centers on some impoverished kids playing at an open outfield on a very hot day. The next scene shows a middle aged woman deciding to go home, she then hears a big thud when trying to get something while driving. And upon finally coming home, she neither can recall whether or not she really hit or killed someone, and her conscience slowly starts to take control of her. I have no idea what to make about this film since a boy was hit, but it's like no one reports about it until many days later, and then soon finding out that it may not be her that had run him over, meaning that the overall effect of the movie is so shallow, whereas, I as a viewers, would rather want to know about the boy in question than the lady who may have or may not have anything to do with it.
A reflection of Salta Argentina
dawilliams-844919 May 2019
This film shows how much Martel is a true Auteur. This film was fascinating to me. It really brings light to the people of Salta, Argentina. You definitely can understand the motif of this woman in a upper class family and the symbolism of the indigenous boy who represents the abandonment of lower class families by the government.
Oh the guilt.
morrison-dylan-fan10 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
As the credits faded to Shadow of the Cat (2021-also reviewed) I got in the mood to catch a non-Horror title from Argentina. Finding a DVD from the country I've got that I have been to play,I got set to cross paths with a headless woman.
View on the film:
Pinned down with fear in the car as she drives away after hearing a bump,Maria Onetto gives an incredibly brittle performance as Veronica, whose unshakable guilt that she may have run over someone is seeped by Onetto into Veronica's daily family life until the uncertainty becomes too much to take.
Cleverly making the audience draw their worst fears of what has been hit by holding the camera firmly on Veronica as the loud noise of someone or something being run over is played outside the car, writer/directing auteur Lucrecia Martel & cinematographer Barbara Alvarez examine the guilt and shame engulfing Veronica, (major recurring themes in Martel's works) with a French New Wave-flavour clinical Thriller atmosphere.
Filling her discreet charms of the bourgeois household with the disturbed scent of guilt that is hanging on Veronica, Martel takes a subtle touch with a scalpel of singling out Veronica in cold, hard single shots on the increasingly isolated Veronica, with the family members who are chatting inn the background and whom she is only half listening to,being blurred, which reflects on Veronica's fear of looking back to get a clear picture of what's taking place.
Dissecting the guilt and shame that she is struggling to contain, the screenplay by Martel uncoils a cerebral character study Thriller on Veronica, where at the center of what from the outside looks like a pristine bourgeois life, no easy answers or comfort is given to the reverberation of the horrifically unsettling sound coming from behind the car of Veronica.
View on the film:
Pinned down with fear in the car as she drives away after hearing a bump,Maria Onetto gives an incredibly brittle performance as Veronica, whose unshakable guilt that she may have run over someone is seeped by Onetto into Veronica's daily family life until the uncertainty becomes too much to take.
Cleverly making the audience draw their worst fears of what has been hit by holding the camera firmly on Veronica as the loud noise of someone or something being run over is played outside the car, writer/directing auteur Lucrecia Martel & cinematographer Barbara Alvarez examine the guilt and shame engulfing Veronica, (major recurring themes in Martel's works) with a French New Wave-flavour clinical Thriller atmosphere.
Filling her discreet charms of the bourgeois household with the disturbed scent of guilt that is hanging on Veronica, Martel takes a subtle touch with a scalpel of singling out Veronica in cold, hard single shots on the increasingly isolated Veronica, with the family members who are chatting inn the background and whom she is only half listening to,being blurred, which reflects on Veronica's fear of looking back to get a clear picture of what's taking place.
Dissecting the guilt and shame that she is struggling to contain, the screenplay by Martel uncoils a cerebral character study Thriller on Veronica, where at the center of what from the outside looks like a pristine bourgeois life, no easy answers or comfort is given to the reverberation of the horrifically unsettling sound coming from behind the car of Veronica.
The Pointless Film!
niallmurphy-3005115 June 2022
An extraordinarily dense conundrum
MOscarbradley28 December 2014
The closest equivalent to Lucrecia Martel's "The Headless Woman" that I can think of is Michaelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-Up". On the surface, of course, they are very different films but thematically they share a similar conundrum and density. An affluent Argentinian woman, (she's a dentist), is driving home when she hits something or someone on the road. She stops momentarily and, without getting out off the car, drives on. Over the following days she becomes convinced she has killed someone but then, as she tries to retrace the events of that weekend, it becomes less and less clear to her and to us, what might have occurred. Is this a film about guilt? Is Vero, the woman in question, aware of what she has done and is she repressing it or are all her suppositions simply the result of a head injury sustained in the accident and are nothing more than a kind of dream or nightmare? Yes, this is a difficult film and requires a good deal of effort but the pace is deliberately slow giving us time to think about what is happening. The film may not provide us with the answers we might want but then I don't believe providing us with answers is what cinema should necessarily be about so long as it gives us the questions. There are questions galore in "The Headless Woman" and it simply shouldn't be missed.
Bad chocolate of the box
sergelamarche21 March 2021
Mesmerizing Slow Burn
evanston_dad22 November 2021
"The Headless Woman" is a mesmerizing slow burn of a movie that takes the unreliable narrator concept to a whole new level.
A woman may or may not have hit and killed a boy with her car. Instead of facing the situation head on, she keeps the secret to herself, and then we watch her slowly disassociate from the world around her as she lives with the guilt.
This movie is the definition of ambiguous, which will likely infuriate some viewers. We don't ever know for sure whether she killed a child or not, and we never know whether she knows for sure either. What we do know is that if she did, she's cushioned by a world of privilege and surrounded by people who will enable her to get away with it sans consequences, with all the nonchalance someone would use to throw an area rug over a stubborn floor stain. After all, what's one poor kid more or less?
Maria Onetto gives a sensational performance in the title role. And I couldn't decide whether or not she reminded me more of Marion Cotillard or a mom I know from my boys' school.
This one got under my skin and stayed there.
Grade: A.
A woman may or may not have hit and killed a boy with her car. Instead of facing the situation head on, she keeps the secret to herself, and then we watch her slowly disassociate from the world around her as she lives with the guilt.
This movie is the definition of ambiguous, which will likely infuriate some viewers. We don't ever know for sure whether she killed a child or not, and we never know whether she knows for sure either. What we do know is that if she did, she's cushioned by a world of privilege and surrounded by people who will enable her to get away with it sans consequences, with all the nonchalance someone would use to throw an area rug over a stubborn floor stain. After all, what's one poor kid more or less?
Maria Onetto gives a sensational performance in the title role. And I couldn't decide whether or not she reminded me more of Marion Cotillard or a mom I know from my boys' school.
This one got under my skin and stayed there.
Grade: A.
A very engaging and intriguing film
calorne15 October 2019
Warning: Spoilers
The foggy-headedness of the main character is expertly conveyed in this movie. She is in shock after a road accident for which she is to blame as she took her eyes off the road. We experience her detached haze as she negotiates day to day life with family, friends and colleagues after the collision.
There is a good review by another contributor which suggests that we act as detectives when watching the film and goes on to conclude that the protagonist did indeed knock down and kill a child in the accident. This is a well laid out argument and it certainly helped my understanding of what I had seen and persuaded me, but on one point about a child's hand print on the car window I think this is not a hard and fast clue for us, as (with the benefit of being able to rewind) it can be seen that the hand mark is on the screen before the car hits anything. It could well be a sign-post for us though.
Life outside of the woman's numbness is presented in a very natural and authentic way, but it also intimately ties into the feelings of uncertainty and guilt that she is burdened with.
This is an excellent, atmospheric film.
There is a good review by another contributor which suggests that we act as detectives when watching the film and goes on to conclude that the protagonist did indeed knock down and kill a child in the accident. This is a well laid out argument and it certainly helped my understanding of what I had seen and persuaded me, but on one point about a child's hand print on the car window I think this is not a hard and fast clue for us, as (with the benefit of being able to rewind) it can be seen that the hand mark is on the screen before the car hits anything. It could well be a sign-post for us though.
Life outside of the woman's numbness is presented in a very natural and authentic way, but it also intimately ties into the feelings of uncertainty and guilt that she is burdened with.
This is an excellent, atmospheric film.
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