Take two parts De Palma, one part Zulawski, four parts “Berberian Sound Studio” and dissolve the whole in about a million parts water, and the resultant dilute solution might approximate “The Intruder,” an oddly flavorless supernatural psycho-thriller from sophomore Argentinian director Natalia Meta. The claustrophobically close-up tale of a woman’s mental unraveling in the wake of a traumatic incident, the film is an adaptation of regional cult favorite “El mal menor” (literally “The Lesser Evil”) by C.E. Feiling, which is evidently a horror-tinged riff on gender and sexual identity. As such, it comes to a stalwart but perhaps rather respectable Berlin competition lineup promising a welcome blast of genre-inflected chaotic-evil energy.
But Meta chooses not to fully embrace the story’s lurid potential. In the flat light of Dp Barbara Alvarez’s strangely prosaic photography, this relatively straightforward assembly of unusual ingredients — mysterious pipe-organ tuners, terrible boyfriends, anti-mothers, sonic...
But Meta chooses not to fully embrace the story’s lurid potential. In the flat light of Dp Barbara Alvarez’s strangely prosaic photography, this relatively straightforward assembly of unusual ingredients — mysterious pipe-organ tuners, terrible boyfriends, anti-mothers, sonic...
- 2/21/2020
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
The Macondos, Colombia’s Academy Awards, were held over the weekend, and Laura Mora’s “Killing Jesus” was the big winner, scooping five awards, including best picture for a Colombian feature.
The win caps off a whirlwind 14 months since the film’s 2017 Toronto world premiere and San Sebastian European premiere, where it won the Eroski Youth Award, Fedeora Award and two special mentions.
A semi-autobiographical film, “Killing Jesus” unspools in Medellin, the base of operations for Pablo Escobar’s cartel, which still suffers reverberations of the violence from his time as the world’s most notorious drug kingpin. Mora used non-professional actors to tell the revenge story of a young girl whose father is gunned down right before her eyes, and who, after a chance encounter with the killer at a nightclub, decides to embark on a mission of revenge.
Diego Ramirez’s Bogota and Cali-based 64A Films, the Colombian...
The win caps off a whirlwind 14 months since the film’s 2017 Toronto world premiere and San Sebastian European premiere, where it won the Eroski Youth Award, Fedeora Award and two special mentions.
A semi-autobiographical film, “Killing Jesus” unspools in Medellin, the base of operations for Pablo Escobar’s cartel, which still suffers reverberations of the violence from his time as the world’s most notorious drug kingpin. Mora used non-professional actors to tell the revenge story of a young girl whose father is gunned down right before her eyes, and who, after a chance encounter with the killer at a nightclub, decides to embark on a mission of revenge.
Diego Ramirez’s Bogota and Cali-based 64A Films, the Colombian...
- 11/19/2018
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Riviera Maya, Mexico — As widely predicted, Sebastian Lelio’s “A Fantastic Woman” swept the 5th Platino Ibero-American Film Awards Sunday, held at the Xcaret Riviera Maya resort in Mexico.
This is the second time Lelio has snagged the best picture Platino Award. His poignant drama about a divorcee, “Gloria,” won at the inaugural edition of the four-year old annual event.
The Platino Awards sweep is another feather in the cap for Lelio who took home the foreign language Oscar for Chile this year for “A Fantastic Woman.”
“Those of us who make movies play with perception and reality; those who watch our films are responsible for making sense of it,” said Lelio upon receiving his best director prize.
In industry terms, Spain was a producer or very often co-producer of virtually all the winning projects, both TV and film.
The glittering event featured a bevy of actors from across Ibero-America...
This is the second time Lelio has snagged the best picture Platino Award. His poignant drama about a divorcee, “Gloria,” won at the inaugural edition of the four-year old annual event.
The Platino Awards sweep is another feather in the cap for Lelio who took home the foreign language Oscar for Chile this year for “A Fantastic Woman.”
“Those of us who make movies play with perception and reality; those who watch our films are responsible for making sense of it,” said Lelio upon receiving his best director prize.
In industry terms, Spain was a producer or very often co-producer of virtually all the winning projects, both TV and film.
The glittering event featured a bevy of actors from across Ibero-America...
- 4/30/2018
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Written and directed by Lucrecia Martel, the Argentine auteur behind La Cineaga and The Headless Woman, Zama is the long-awaited adaptation of Antonio Di Benedetto’s classic of Latin American modernism.
Zama transports us to a remote corner of 18th-century South America where Zama, a servant of the Spanish crown, slowly loses his grip on reality. Zama brings a 21st century perspective to bear on the history of colonial catastrophe in the Americas. Marooned in an a colonial outpost, the titular Don Diego De Zama (a soulful yet funny Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Bad Education, Y Tu Mama narrator, Arrancame la vida) waits in vain for a transfer to a more prestigious post.
Martel, in a perfect coupling of literary source material and cinematic sensibility, renders Zama’s world as both absurd and mysterious as he succumbs more and more to lust, paranoia and a creeping disorientation. A fever dream, the...
Zama transports us to a remote corner of 18th-century South America where Zama, a servant of the Spanish crown, slowly loses his grip on reality. Zama brings a 21st century perspective to bear on the history of colonial catastrophe in the Americas. Marooned in an a colonial outpost, the titular Don Diego De Zama (a soulful yet funny Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Bad Education, Y Tu Mama narrator, Arrancame la vida) waits in vain for a transfer to a more prestigious post.
Martel, in a perfect coupling of literary source material and cinematic sensibility, renders Zama’s world as both absurd and mysterious as he succumbs more and more to lust, paranoia and a creeping disorientation. A fever dream, the...
- 12/6/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Lucrecia Martel. Photo by Darren Hughes.Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho) is a man out of time. Trapped in Argentina, the land of his birth, and serving at the whims of a foreign crown, he embodies the role of colonizer as a middle-aged, corporate functionary—bored, horny, witless, and incompetent. He waits and waits for a promised transfer to reunite with his wife and child, and then waits some more. When he finally does take action, volunteering to join an expedition to find and kill the notorious bandit Vicuña Porto, this adventure too is folly that ends only in further humiliation.Lucrecia Martel’s Zama resolves few of the episodes she selected to adapt from Antonio Di Benedetto’s 1956 novel of the same name. Instead, she ensnares viewers in a similarly unnerving stasis. Characters enter Zama’s life—three lovely sisters, a visiting merchant called “The Oriental,” the...
- 9/18/2017
- MUBI
Credit where it’s due: Few films have done more to unite the international film community than “Zama.” The minutes-long opening titles list over 20 different production companies and regional supports. The nominally Argentinian film is a joint venture between nine other countries as well, and the end credits name figures as diverse as Danny Glover, Pedro Almodóvar, and Gael Garcia Bernal among the many other who jumped on to help this project through a troubled, many year production. Finally complete, Lucrecia Martel’s film promises to be significantly more divisive.
Technically an adaptation of Antonio Di Benedetto acclaimed modernist novel, “Zama” reads just as much like an open declaration of war against the line that separates form and content. The source text told the story of an 18th century magistrate driven to madness while waiting for his next post; the film forces the viewer to go mad right there with him.
Technically an adaptation of Antonio Di Benedetto acclaimed modernist novel, “Zama” reads just as much like an open declaration of war against the line that separates form and content. The source text told the story of an 18th century magistrate driven to madness while waiting for his next post; the film forces the viewer to go mad right there with him.
- 8/31/2017
- by Ben Croll
- Indiewire
CANNES -- Catholic school girls and provincial doctors -- are there two more repressed groups? -- rub elbows, and a few other body parts, in this unduly dry In Competition entrant. Although a contemporary drama, "La Nina Santa" (The Holy Girl) feels like a period piece from long ago, such is its stodgy dramaturgy.
In this Spanish, coming-of-age story, two sexually immature groups, adolescent students and middle-aged doctors, intersect at a small hotel where a medical convention is being held. The hotel is run by a glamorous divorcee (Mercedes Moran), and it is the hangout of her adolescent daughter, Amalia, and her schoolgirl chums. In between choir rehearsals and Biblical discussions, the girls whisper about all the good things they can't reveal among adults; accordingly, these girls are on their own in these matters, literally and figuratively, groping for answers.
Not surprisingly, the middle-aged cadre of physicians does not seem any more sexually advanced, tied up in long-term marriages and leading the lives of respectable physicians. Like many physicians of their era, the good doctors are of the dweeb variety, nerds who have trouble relating to their patients, especially the taciturn Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso), who exhibits repressed symptoms almost immediately -- eying the girls, even rubbing up against Amalia (Maria Alche) in a crowd. His seeking her out is no mere random, predatory mistake -- she has cast yearning glances his way and pursued him.
In essence, "La Nina Santa" is a forbidden-love story centering around societal and religious conventions. Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel has intelligently presented a situation where the dictum of religion, as well as the professional guideposts of a respected profession, provide only facile guidance in matters of overall human need, resorting to shallow homilies or institutional dictum. In particular, Martel counterpoints the schoolgirls' rigid religious discussions and hymn singing with their teenaged exuberance and life-embracing natures.
Overall, "La Nina Santa" is a disappointingly barren drama: A running gag of a compulsive maid spraying disinfectant all over provides the film's most entertaining moments. Intercutting between the tedious choir practices and the nerdy socializing of the dull doctors, "La Nina Santa" is a drama of low-pulse rate and dim pallor, bereft of irony and anemic in essential dramatic functions, a surprising diagnosis considering Pedro Almodovar is an executive producer.
La Nina Santa
Pyramide
Credits:
Producer: Lita Stantic
Writer/director: Lucrecia Martel
Executive producers: Pedro Almodovar, Agustin Almodovar, Esther Garcia
Line producer: Matias Mosteirin
Cinematographer: Felix Monti
Editor: Santiago Ricci
Art director: Graciela Oderigo
Costume designer: Julio Suarez
Sound: Marcos De Aguirre, David Miranda, Guido Berenblum Music: Andres Gerszenzon
Cast:
Mercedes Moran, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapileta, Maria Alche, Julieta Zylberberg, Mia Maestro, Monica Villa, Marta Lubos, Alejo Mango, Arturo Goetz
No MPAA Rating
Running time -- 106 minutes...
In this Spanish, coming-of-age story, two sexually immature groups, adolescent students and middle-aged doctors, intersect at a small hotel where a medical convention is being held. The hotel is run by a glamorous divorcee (Mercedes Moran), and it is the hangout of her adolescent daughter, Amalia, and her schoolgirl chums. In between choir rehearsals and Biblical discussions, the girls whisper about all the good things they can't reveal among adults; accordingly, these girls are on their own in these matters, literally and figuratively, groping for answers.
Not surprisingly, the middle-aged cadre of physicians does not seem any more sexually advanced, tied up in long-term marriages and leading the lives of respectable physicians. Like many physicians of their era, the good doctors are of the dweeb variety, nerds who have trouble relating to their patients, especially the taciturn Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso), who exhibits repressed symptoms almost immediately -- eying the girls, even rubbing up against Amalia (Maria Alche) in a crowd. His seeking her out is no mere random, predatory mistake -- she has cast yearning glances his way and pursued him.
In essence, "La Nina Santa" is a forbidden-love story centering around societal and religious conventions. Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel has intelligently presented a situation where the dictum of religion, as well as the professional guideposts of a respected profession, provide only facile guidance in matters of overall human need, resorting to shallow homilies or institutional dictum. In particular, Martel counterpoints the schoolgirls' rigid religious discussions and hymn singing with their teenaged exuberance and life-embracing natures.
Overall, "La Nina Santa" is a disappointingly barren drama: A running gag of a compulsive maid spraying disinfectant all over provides the film's most entertaining moments. Intercutting between the tedious choir practices and the nerdy socializing of the dull doctors, "La Nina Santa" is a drama of low-pulse rate and dim pallor, bereft of irony and anemic in essential dramatic functions, a surprising diagnosis considering Pedro Almodovar is an executive producer.
La Nina Santa
Pyramide
Credits:
Producer: Lita Stantic
Writer/director: Lucrecia Martel
Executive producers: Pedro Almodovar, Agustin Almodovar, Esther Garcia
Line producer: Matias Mosteirin
Cinematographer: Felix Monti
Editor: Santiago Ricci
Art director: Graciela Oderigo
Costume designer: Julio Suarez
Sound: Marcos De Aguirre, David Miranda, Guido Berenblum Music: Andres Gerszenzon
Cast:
Mercedes Moran, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapileta, Maria Alche, Julieta Zylberberg, Mia Maestro, Monica Villa, Marta Lubos, Alejo Mango, Arturo Goetz
No MPAA Rating
Running time -- 106 minutes...
CANNES -- Catholic school girls and provincial doctors -- are there two more repressed groups? -- rub elbows, and a few other body parts, in this unduly dry In Competition entrant. Although a contemporary drama, "La Nina Santa" (The Holy Girl) feels like a period piece from long ago, such is its stodgy dramaturgy.
In this Spanish, coming-of-age story, two sexually immature groups, adolescent students and middle-aged doctors, intersect at a small hotel where a medical convention is being held. The hotel is run by a glamorous divorcee (Mercedes Moran), and it is the hangout of her adolescent daughter, Amalia, and her schoolgirl chums. In between choir rehearsals and Biblical discussions, the girls whisper about all the good things they can't reveal among adults; accordingly, these girls are on their own in these matters, literally and figuratively, groping for answers.
Not surprisingly, the middle-aged cadre of physicians does not seem any more sexually advanced, tied up in long-term marriages and leading the lives of respectable physicians. Like many physicians of their era, the good doctors are of the dweeb variety, nerds who have trouble relating to their patients, especially the taciturn Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso), who exhibits repressed symptoms almost immediately -- eying the girls, even rubbing up against Amalia (Maria Alche) in a crowd. His seeking her out is no mere random, predatory mistake -- she has cast yearning glances his way and pursued him.
In essence, "La Nina Santa" is a forbidden-love story centering around societal and religious conventions. Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel has intelligently presented a situation where the dictum of religion, as well as the professional guideposts of a respected profession, provide only facile guidance in matters of overall human need, resorting to shallow homilies or institutional dictum. In particular, Martel counterpoints the schoolgirls' rigid religious discussions and hymn singing with their teenaged exuberance and life-embracing natures.
Overall, "La Nina Santa" is a disappointingly barren drama: A running gag of a compulsive maid spraying disinfectant all over provides the film's most entertaining moments. Intercutting between the tedious choir practices and the nerdy socializing of the dull doctors, "La Nina Santa" is a drama of low-pulse rate and dim pallor, bereft of irony and anemic in essential dramatic functions, a surprising diagnosis considering Pedro Almodovar is an executive producer.
La Nina Santa
Pyramide
Credits:
Producer: Lita Stantic
Writer/director: Lucrecia Martel
Executive producers: Pedro Almodovar, Agustin Almodovar, Esther Garcia
Line producer: Matias Mosteirin
Cinematographer: Felix Monti
Editor: Santiago Ricci
Art director: Graciela Oderigo
Costume designer: Julio Suarez
Sound: Marcos De Aguirre, David Miranda, Guido Berenblum Music: Andres Gerszenzon
Cast:
Mercedes Moran, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapileta, Maria Alche, Julieta Zylberberg, Mia Maestro, Monica Villa, Marta Lubos, Alejo Mango, Arturo Goetz
No MPAA Rating
Running time -- 106 minutes...
In this Spanish, coming-of-age story, two sexually immature groups, adolescent students and middle-aged doctors, intersect at a small hotel where a medical convention is being held. The hotel is run by a glamorous divorcee (Mercedes Moran), and it is the hangout of her adolescent daughter, Amalia, and her schoolgirl chums. In between choir rehearsals and Biblical discussions, the girls whisper about all the good things they can't reveal among adults; accordingly, these girls are on their own in these matters, literally and figuratively, groping for answers.
Not surprisingly, the middle-aged cadre of physicians does not seem any more sexually advanced, tied up in long-term marriages and leading the lives of respectable physicians. Like many physicians of their era, the good doctors are of the dweeb variety, nerds who have trouble relating to their patients, especially the taciturn Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso), who exhibits repressed symptoms almost immediately -- eying the girls, even rubbing up against Amalia (Maria Alche) in a crowd. His seeking her out is no mere random, predatory mistake -- she has cast yearning glances his way and pursued him.
In essence, "La Nina Santa" is a forbidden-love story centering around societal and religious conventions. Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel has intelligently presented a situation where the dictum of religion, as well as the professional guideposts of a respected profession, provide only facile guidance in matters of overall human need, resorting to shallow homilies or institutional dictum. In particular, Martel counterpoints the schoolgirls' rigid religious discussions and hymn singing with their teenaged exuberance and life-embracing natures.
Overall, "La Nina Santa" is a disappointingly barren drama: A running gag of a compulsive maid spraying disinfectant all over provides the film's most entertaining moments. Intercutting between the tedious choir practices and the nerdy socializing of the dull doctors, "La Nina Santa" is a drama of low-pulse rate and dim pallor, bereft of irony and anemic in essential dramatic functions, a surprising diagnosis considering Pedro Almodovar is an executive producer.
La Nina Santa
Pyramide
Credits:
Producer: Lita Stantic
Writer/director: Lucrecia Martel
Executive producers: Pedro Almodovar, Agustin Almodovar, Esther Garcia
Line producer: Matias Mosteirin
Cinematographer: Felix Monti
Editor: Santiago Ricci
Art director: Graciela Oderigo
Costume designer: Julio Suarez
Sound: Marcos De Aguirre, David Miranda, Guido Berenblum Music: Andres Gerszenzon
Cast:
Mercedes Moran, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapileta, Maria Alche, Julieta Zylberberg, Mia Maestro, Monica Villa, Marta Lubos, Alejo Mango, Arturo Goetz
No MPAA Rating
Running time -- 106 minutes...
- 5/17/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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