Trenque Lauquen (2022)
January 17, 2025 3:40 AM - Subscribe

Laura Citarella's Argentinean masterpiece is a slow exploration of love, the stories we tell about ourselves, the stories we tell about each other, and cryptids. The centerpiece is the disappearance of Laura (played by Laura Paredes, who also helped write the film); at the start, we follow her boyfriend Rafael and her colleague/assistant Ezequiel in their search for her. This search, however, leads only to many more layers of story.

It's a four and a half hour movie (with a clear intermission break) that is often described, accurately, as Lynchian. We spend the first half of the movie learning about Laura through Rafael's descriptions and Ezequiel's memories; after the intermission, Laura's point of view takes primacy and the story goes to completely different places -- stranger and more surreal. It's also full of references and homage: the first chapter is titled "La Aventura" in reference to Antonioni’s movie, and Laura is a nod to the classic noir film of the same name.
posted by Bryant (1 comment total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Some miscellanea: it took six years to make this film, in part because of the complexity of the narrative; they were rewriting the script up until the very end of filming and the remarkable final scene. Laura Citarella is a member of the Argentine film collective and production company El Pampero Cine, who have made quite a few very long reality-exploring movies. The members work on each others films, and their lo-fi yet precise sensibility is, for me, a refreshing slant in comparison to American mumblecore.

If you like epistolary fiction, the first half of this movie will be an utter joy but I would be remiss if I did not warn you to expect changes in the second half.
posted by Bryant at 3:43 AM on January 17


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