Veronica is driving on the highway in northwestern Argentina. She becomes distracted by the ringtone of her mobile phone and runs over something, but drives on. The story will revolve around her meltdown following the accident and the possible death of someone. The police confirm that there were no accident reports. But she has doubts about what she had really hit. Was it an animal? A child?
The mystery of what happened, or what is imagined to have happened, has intrigued audiences and critics alike.
Born in 1966, Martel studied animation at Avellaneda Experimental (AVEX), attended the National Experimentation Filmmaking School (ENERC) for several years, and studied Communication Science. She directed a number of short films between 1988 and 1994, including Rey Muerto (Dead King), when was part of Historías Breves I (Brief Tales I). In 2001, Martel directed the film La Ciénaga (The Swamp), which won awards in Berlin, Havana, Toulouse, and Sundance, among other festivals. In 2004, Martel wrote and directed La Niña Santa (The Holy Girl), which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival that year.
Lucrecia Martel interviewed by Amy Taubin in Film Comment
2007: The Headless Woman (La Mujer sin Cabeza)
2004: The Holy Girl (La Niña Santa)
2001: The Swamp (La Ciénaga)
1995: Rey Muerto, short
Writer, Director Lucrecia Martel
Executive Producer Verónica Cura
Producers Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Almodóvar
Esther García, Verónica Cura,Enrique Piñeyro
Lucrecia Martel, Marianne Slot, Vieri Razzini
Cesare Petrillo, Tilde Corsi
Cinematography Bárbara Álvarez
Art Director Maria Eugenia Sueiro
Editor Miguel Schverdfinger
Sound Director Guido Berenblum
First Assistant Director Fabiana Tiscornia
Unit Production Manager Juan Pablo Miller
Casting Natalia Smirnoff
Wardrobe Julio Suárez
Makeup Marisa Amenta
Hairdresser Alberto Moccia
Verónica María Onetto
Josefina Claudia Cantero
Candita Inés Efron
Juan Manuel Daniel Genoud
Marcos César Bordón
Marcelo Guillermo Arengo
Lala María Vaner
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“You’d have to be headless or heartless yourself not to let this extraordinary eerie film get under your skin.”
Jonathan Romney, The Independent on Sunday
★★★★★
“In the past decade, there have been three great films about guilt, denial and the return of the repressed: Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake in 2004, Michael Haneke’s Hidden in 2005 – and this is the third, La Mujer Sin Cabeza, or The Headless Woman.”
“A masterly, disturbing and deeply mysterious film…”
“I’m as certain as I can be of the towering talent of Lucrecia Martel…”
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
★★★★★
“You’ll leave The Headless Woman wanting to see it again.”
“What an extraordinary film…a thriller of sorts, a social satire in the spirit of Luis Bunuel.”
“ The director, like Claire Denis, like Lynne Ramsay too, has an amazing ability to mesh rhythm, sound and ambience to create utterly distinctive evocations of female headspace.”
Sukhdev Sandhu, The Daily Telegraph
★★★★★
"In what could be one of the greatest films ever made about the emotional realities of a damaged mind, this giddily disorientating latest from Argentinean director Lucrecia Martel ("La Cienaga, 'The Holy Girl') is a work of frenzied genius...a cinematic headtrip like no other.
David Jenkins, Time Out
“I adored this film...extraordinary...one of the films of the year ”
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
★★★★★
“The Argentine director of The Holy Girl confirms her standins as one of the finest directors around with this fascinating mystery...Sit back, watch and wonder.
Tom Charity, The Times Playlist
"Every frame of this brilliant, maddeningly enigmatic puzzle of a movie contains crucial information...A metaphysical ghost story in which enigmatic clues are dropped about a possible crime that is never solved. The more closely you study (the film), the deeper and more unsettling are its mysteries.”
Stephen Holden, The New York Times
★★★★
“It sounds like a thriller, but it a profoundly disturbing study of character dislocation.”
“A subtle allegory of recent Argentine politics…”
LI-Z, Metro
★★★★★
“An astounding portrait of a person entirely out of sync with her own existence. Lucrecia Martel – aided by Álvarez’s probing Peeping Tom camera work – distinguishes this effort through a confident and expressive aesthetic.”
Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York
“One of the great films of the decade.”
James Quandt, Artforum
“The third feature by Lucrecia Martel, leading director of the Argentine renaissance, is her strongest to date – this brilliantly edited, purposefully disorienting comedy about a middle-aged woman's post-car-accident confusion is the movie I'm most looking forward to revisiting.”
J. Hoberman, Village Voice
“The exacting formalism and beauty is undeniable…a tour de force of economical storytelling.”
Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
“Elusive, playful and mysterious... Observations on family, sexuality and religion among Argentina’s provincial bourgeoisie are as subversive as they are savage.”
“It crawls under your skin and stays there.”
“of Martel’s features, ...it is ultimately the most enigmatic, accomplished and rewarding.”
Demetrios Matheou, Sight and Sound