Popular reviews

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  Review by Cristhian Flores ★★★★★ 1

  ¿Cómo filmar el calor?
  ¿Cómo filmar la humedad?
  ¿Cómo filmar la suciedad y la herida?
  ¿Cómo filmar una atmósfera irrespirable?
  ¿Cómo filmar un estado de ánimo individual, comunitario y colectivo?
  ¿Cómo filmar el deseo y la proximidad acechante de la tragedia?

  Todas esas preguntas tienen una sola respuesta: como lo hace Lucrecia Martel en La Ciénaga.

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  Review by KYK 6

  Why was everyone, like, casually bleeding in this movie.

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  Review by Micaela Giaconi ★★★★★ 3

  “Hay que hablar porque sino después es peor. Sino después las historias se repiten”.

  Cada vez que la veo me gusta más y le encuentro más y más detalles. Cada sonido, cada imagen y cada palabra de La Ciénaga narra. Detrás de todos sus elementos se esconde el agobio, el cual encierra a cada uno de los personajes, tanto a grandes como a chicos. A los grandes porque "ya han vivido" (por lo tanto sufren y han sufrido) y a los chicos por la amenaza latente de convertirse en ellos.

  Mecha, alcohólica y depresiva, se la pasa todo el día en la cama (al igual que lo hacía su madre) viendo la aparición de la Virgen en el pueblo por…

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★½ 1

  "I guess I know where the towels went."

  Martel’s first feature observes an Argentinian family that’s mired in a seemingly permanent state of rot. Their declining socio-economic fortunes and their paralyzingly provincial mentality have lead this clan, split between a house in the wetlands and the nearby town that lends the film its title, to embody what Martel describes as “A society that lives vaguely hoping that nothing will ever change, and in terror of everything repeating itself indefinitely.” They are completely and irrevocably stuck – a storm is always threatening to displace them, yet it never touches down. In fact, it never even rains. It is almost as if the characters, usually gathered around the brackish waters of the pool that’s been installed at the family estate, are living inside the eye of a hurricane – it’s deceptively serene, but to step outside of their immediate environments seems unfathomable.

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  Review by manuelgimenez ★★★★½ 4

  La mejor película del mundo para ver una tarde húmeda de verano en la casa donde te criaste mientras te tira aire caliente un ventilador de techo con las tuercas flojas.

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  Review by Joan ★★★½

  the sister who was smitten by the housekeeper.... a burgeoning lesbian...

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  Review by Noah Smith ★★★★

  Phantom Thread: *Butters toast*

  La Cienaga: “Oh yeah?” *Drags chairs*

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  Review by Aaron Michael ★★★★

  The phrase, "hard to watch" comes to mind. Not because the film is bad, but because the film immediately throws you into this mess and traps you there. You watch as things just fall apart, get messier, and often just remain stagnant, continuing on a course of bad luck.

  In that respect, the name of the film is perfect - La Cienaga or The Swamp. That's exactly what the film is. A family stuck in the mud and the unflinching portrayal of their own decay.

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  Review by Graham L. Carter 3

  the abstractions and near surrealism of the first scene allow every cut to open up a new world, and even moments contained within the same physical space/scene feel like fragmented, isolated events. It's an underwater cinema.

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  Review by Carlos Valladares ★★★★½ 2

  Ennui has never had such a definitive evocation as in Lucrecia Martel's La Ciénaga. It is one of the most narratively disjointed and off-kilter cinematic experiences I've ever endured. Lurching between mind-numbing listlessness and unprovoked action, Martel termite-eats her way through the doldrums of life unlike anything that's been evoked on the screen. The picture is about waiting, waiting for something, anything to happen. It is perpetually on the precipice of turning into a David Lynch nightmare, which it does so impercetibly that it takes several viewings to unpack all Martel's three-dimensionality. Characters (such as they are) are so hush-hushed in Martel's swampy sound-land-scape that we can't tell which character is who and how people are related to one another.…

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  Review by Those Eyebrows ★★★★

  Man, the Argentinian version of Arrested Development gets dark.

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  Review by Laura ★★★★ 4

  bodies melting into each other like ice cubes in a glass. even in the heat we are drawn to that contact. dragging chairs across the cement to be close, washing the blood and dirt off someone’s leg, pulling shards of glass from their chest, sharing beds. even what’s uncomfortable is embraced. all bruised, scraped, sweaty. all weighed down by the same discomfort. all knowing what tomorrow brings.