The Holy Girl (2004)

16-year-old Amalia looks to save the soul of a middle-aged doctor.

Director:

Lucrecia Martel

Writers:

Juan Pablo Domenech (contributing writer), Lucrecia Martel

Stars:

Mercedes Morán, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapilleta

4 wins & 8 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Mercedes Morán	...	Helena
Carlos Belloso	...	Dr. Jano
Alejandro Urdapilleta	...	Freddy
María Alche	...	Amalia
Julieta Zylberberg	...	Josefina
Mía Maestro	...	Inés
Marta Lubos	...	Mirta
Arturo Goetz	...	Dr. Vesalio
Alejo Mango	...	Dr. Cuesta
Mónica Villa	...	Madre de Josefina
Leandro Stivelman	...	Julian
Manuel Schaller	...	Thermin player
Miriam Diaz	...	Miriam
Rodolfo Cejas	...	Josefina's father
Maria Victoria Mosca Coll	...	Local girl

Storyline

ENT physicians gather at a provincial hotel in Salta. The hotel owner, Helena, is subdued, brittle, avoiding the calls of her ex-husband's pregnant wife. Family dysfunction seems everywhere. Helena's daughter, Amalia, about 14, discusses vocations in a Catholic girls group. Their teen imaginations conflate the erotic, the religious, and the lurid. Amalia notices Dr. Jano, and he notices her. She decides to make him her vocation, she follows him, he rubs against her in a public crowd, he's appalled at his actions. Meanwhile, Helena believes Jano is attracted to her even though he's married. Longing, guilt, scandal, and teen sensuality are set to collide.

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Plot Keywords:

hotel | 16 year old | doctor | f rated | tinnitus | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some sexual content and brief nudity

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [ar (Spanish, English) Official site [Argentina]

Country:

Argentina Italy Netherlands Spain

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

6 May 2004 (Argentina)

Also Known As:

The Holy Girl

Filming Locations:

Salta, Argentina

Box Office

Budget:

$1,400,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

ARS 75,013 (Argentina), 11 May 2004, Limited Release

Opening Weekend USA:

$28,327, 1 May 2005, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$304,124, 4 July 2005

Company Credits

Production Co:

La Pasionaria S.r.l., R&C Produzioni, Teodora Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

'La niña santa' (The Holy Girl) stars María Alché and is directed by Lucrecia Martel. Both Maria and Lucrecia graduated from the same film school, ENERC.

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Soundtracks

Cara de Gitana
Written by AMRI / Justiniano Orquera / Rubén Lotes
Performed by Daniel Magal

User Reviews

A Seemingly Great Film

More admirable than attractive is Lucrecia Martel's "The Holy Girl" – even at this time I am feeling a steady amount of ambivalence toward this maddeningly beautiful film. Is this kind of paradoxical relationship even possible? Even the proverbial sinner in his love/hate toward expiation seems dubious.

The film follows Amalia and her friend Josefina's exploits as they navigate their way through a summer of adolescence. Sanctimonious doesn't even begin to describe them – indeed, Amalia is wanting to screw a man she's trying to "save" while Josefina regards her Catholic school teacher with disdain due to the good teacher's sexual adventures even though Josefina herself takes it up the arse from her horny boyfriend. This shopworn irony regarding the duality and dialectical impulses in hormonal, affectedly pious people grows wearisome on the attention span.

Okay, but I used the adjective "beautiful" earlier. And it most certainly is from a logistical standpoint. The DP composed seemingly interminable, achingly gorgeous shots of the action. He had no qualms about not using deep-focus photography (in which everything in the frame is in focus). This style harks back to the old American B&W's in which they were not afraid to focus on only one piece of the frame while leaving the rest in a blurry discombobulation. A power erupts from the screen the more pronounced these shots are. However, it must be said, the steady frequency of all this becomes stultifying to an annoying degree – like chocolate in endless supply, it becomes too much of a good thing.

This cloying film would have been great if it didn't try so hard to be a great film. Art house flicks mostly subscribe to an overly snobby and abundantly complex ideological schema. Is a show-off praiseworthy? Not in this case.