by Joel
#90 in Best of the 21st Century?, a series in which I view, for the first time, some of the most critically acclaimed films of the previous decade.
There are the mysteries that wrap us up in the procedural onscreen, giving us a pleasing diversion and a riddle to solve, and then there are the mysteries which serve as red herrings, MacGuffins for something else. L’Avventura and Blow-Up belong to that latter category, and in The Headless Woman Lucrecia Martel follows suit. But if Michelangelo Antonioni was examining the psychology and spiritual ennui in his 60s classics, Martel’s underlying investigation is primarily social. Vero (Maria Oneta) is driving down a dirt road by herself, returning from a get-together with her friends, mostly middle-class, middle-aged women like herself. Her cell phone rings and she leans over to take the call – the car slams into something, shudders and Vero freezes. We don’t see what she sees – we’re not even sure if she does see anything. She trembles, puts her sunglasses on, takes a few moments and then drives on, massaging her head which she hit in the accident. Looking back out of the car we can see what appears to be a crushed bicycle in the road – but this is not necessarily to say she hit its rider; in the first scene, a few children were chasing one another around and one of them easily could have left his bike in the road. Or so we hope – as does Vero. A torrential downpour has just begun, and as she drives into the rain she does not look back.
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