There are a lot of rising cinematic movements from different parts of the planet going on right now. However, one of the most interesting is coming from Argentina. Filmmakers like Daniel Burman (“Lost Embrace,” 2004), Lucrecia Martel (“The Headless Woman,” 2008), Benjamín Naishtat (“Rojo,” 2018), Luis Ortega (“El Angel,” 2018), and Pablo Trapero (“Carancho,” 2014) have delivered great pieces of work through these years. They have placed Argentina as one of the countries to look for directors on the rise.
Argentina Has Had a Couple Great Years for Cinema
It has been a couple of great years for Argentinian cinema; many projects have ended up in many critics’ and cinemagoers’ respective best of the year lists. You could add Laura Citarella to the eclectic list of fascinating directors from the land of silver. Citarella’s works are interpersonal and revolve around solving the mysteries of human existence, or at least the ones in their heart and center. Her films may be romantic, but they have a touch of corporal and biological tones that make the stories she crafts feel close to home.
Laura Citarella takes a note from one of her producer credits, Mariano Llinás’ long-winded yet equally outstanding “La Flor”—a project that captured six independent and successive stories connected by the same four actresses, with a canvas of nearly fourteen hours in length.
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Although she didn’t want to do it to that extent, Citarella wished to make her own extensive work, one that could be adjoined alongside the projects she has made in the past, “Ostende” (2011) and “La Mujer de Los Perros” (2015). So, she created the 260-minute project “Trenque Lauquen” (named after the city in the west of the province of Buenos Aires). Citarella divides the feature into two films and a total of twelve chapters, a filmmaking conceit that isn’t foreign to Argentina’s cinema. However, like “La Flor,” “Trenque Lauquen” feels like a visualized novel—a book that has come to life with all its pages and quotes being demonstrated; nothing is cut.
A 4-Hour Feature that Holds an Engaging Mystery
The 4-hour feature revolves around a biologist, Laura (the excellent Laura Paredes, who has a writing credit on the film), who has disappeared from the face of the Earth. Out of the blue, she has suddenly vanished, which prompts an investigation that starts to raise an array of questions about what exactly happened, like the unveiling of a matryoshka doll.
Two men, her boyfriend Rafael (Rafael Spregelburd) and colleague Ezequiel (Ezequiel Pierri), nicknamed Chicho, lead the charge by retracing Laura’s steps during her final days in Trenque Lauquen. One’s mind starts to wander, thinking about the similarities with Richard Linklater’s “Where’d You Go, Bernadette.” A woman has disappeared, and we, the audience, don’t know her reasoning. People search for her, but each clue they get provides half an answer and prompts new questions. However, the comparisons stop there. Citarella’s film does not contain the zaniness and comedic folly that Linklater added to his feature. And it is for the better.
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They aren’t detectives, sleuths, or operatives, but the two are trying their best to find her, asking everyone they see if anyone has seen her. Rafael thinks that Laura’s disappearance relates to her shenanigans at one of her many jobs (the recurring guest spot on the local radio station’s show, biologist, fieldworker). However, Ezequiel knows that her departure is related to a more close-knit and personal incident, as Laura quotes to him: “I think I’ve become the only witness of a little mystery.” He knows that something deep inside Laura is driving her to fulfill the hankering for retreat.
Citarella Examines the Sensation of Feeling Incomplete
The first two chapters of this prolonged story revolve around these two men driving around the city trying to find clues about a woman who only appears throughout the film through recollections and examination. And just like the questions and answers unraveling one after the other like a Russian doll, so does the narrative. Its simplistic nature emerges into something more significant the longer it extends itself.
Indeed, it isn’t perfect, but “Trenque Lauquen” is definitely a fascinating project from a filmmaker on the rise. The production is about those times when we question our place in the world—the moments in which a person feels like something is missing in one’s life or feels as if they were unnecessary to the progression of our surroundings. Citarella fills her film with melancholy, but also includes sympathy and sanguinity, which she scatters throughout. The movie’s characters might be searching for that part of themselves that craves the need to be desired, but, in the end, they leave with less than what they initially hoped.
As it continues, Citarella examines the sensation of feeling incomplete, which many people have felt during their lives. As one chapter ends and a new one begins (and the first part concludes and the next one commences), the substance contained behind the mystery of Laura’s disappearance starts to feel less significant. The enticement of chasing down solutions just to end up with more questions is what drives the “Trenque Lauquen” to successful heights.
An Awarding Puzzle-like Experience of Contemplation
Even if the second part of this story’s division is not as enthralling or compelling as the first one, it’s still cinematically absorbing; Citarella manages to move the audience watching. She prompts questions about the impossible truths of life’s harsh chapters and recaptures one’s identity by following the tracks of a rabbit hole with a deep course.
There are many ways to answer those questions, and four hours isn’t going to cut it. However, that’s sort of the point. While you lose yourself in finding the missing pieces of fractured stability, you begin to notice that there aren’t any easy answers. How does one stamp their immortality in a world constantly self-annihilating itself? Citarella’s direction flourishes with great movement toward the various backgrounds where the search is heading, creating beautiful images that add to the film’s theme of losing one’s sense of self and restoring it through a journey of self-discovery and personal freedom. “Trenque Lauquen” unfolds in a manner with which some will lose patience during its first few sequences. Still, those interested in being rewarded with a puzzle-like experience of contemplation will be hooked by Citarella and Paredes’ fascinating and surprising feat.
“Trenque Lauquen” is part of our continuing coverage of the 2022 New York Film Festival (NYFF).
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