100
Chicago Reader
Every frame is dense with life, with children and animals running in and out, yet it's not messy. Instead it's highly focused--and something of a small masterpiece.
La Ciénaga
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
- Argentina,
- France,
- Spain,
- Japan
- 2001
- · 103m
Director
Lucrecia Martel
Cast
Mercedes Morán,
Graciela Borges,
Martín Adjemián,
Leonora Balcarce,
Silvia Baylé,
Sofia Bertolotto
Genre
Comedy,
Drama
Mecha and Gregorio are vacationing with their family at their decaying country house where the adults are constantly drinking, the children are never supervised, and the blistering heat is always a concern. When Mecha cuts herself and has to go to the hospital, the children take advantage of their increased freedom.
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What are critics saying?
100
Chicago Reader by Meredith Brody
Every frame is dense with life, with children and animals running in and out, yet it's not messy. Instead it's highly focused--and something of a small masterpiece.
100
Village Voice by Amy Taubin
A veritable Chekhov tragicomedy of provincial life.
100
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Sean Axmaker
Vital and alive. Frustration and malaise rumble through every richly textured frame, but behind it all is a restlessness and a desire for something better.
90
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
Martel's sharp observations of the foibles of human nature are expressed perfectly in the telling images of cinematographer Hugo Colace and tight editing of Santiago Ricci.
90
New Times (L.A.) by Bill Gallo
For better or worse, the filmmaker says nothing directly political about the cruel fate suffered by her people, but the dark poetry of her allusions is powerful.
90
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
As La Ciénaga perspires from the screen, it creates a vision of social malaise that feels paradoxically familiar and new.
88
Chicago Tribune
Argentinean filmmaker Lucrecia Martel takes fundamental risks with form and style, and it pays off brilliantly.
88
Chicago Tribune by Patrick Z. McGavin
Argentinean filmmaker Lucrecia Martel takes fundamental risks with form and style, and it pays off brilliantly.
80
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Peter Rainer
There's a new sensibility at work here, wry yet lushly disaffected, and it will be worth watching what Martel does next.
80
TV Guide Magazine by Ken Fox
Martel can barely contain her disgust, and like Bunuel before her, she knows just when to cut the laughs and go straight for the throat.
80
L.A. Weekly by Ella Taylor
Martel's off-the-cuff candor and intelligent eye for the quietly telling detail charts the progressive rot not only of a family, but of an entire social class.
75
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
It's better to know going in that you're not expected to be able to fit everything together, that you may lose track of some members of the large cast, that it's like attending a family reunion when it's not your family and your hosts are too drunk to introduce you around.
75
Boston Globe by Jay Carr
The triumph of La Cienaga lies in Martel's way of fashioning the kind of ensemble performance that draws us in by convincing us we're watching behavior, not acting.
67
Austin Chronicle by Marrit Ingman
Doesn't necessarily make for a crowdpleasing experience, though it is a provocative and uncomfortably authentic one.
50
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
The title means "The Swamp," and you may feel you're in one after 103 minutes with such a generally unlikable gang.
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