WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY LUCRECIA MARTEL

“Elegant. 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
Click here to read the full review

“One of the great films of the decade.” – James Quandt, Artforum


(highest rating)
“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

“The exacting formalism and beauty of THE HEADLESS WOMAN… is undeniable.” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“Critics’ Pick!” – New York magazine

“All of Martel’s films examine the dynamics and hierarchies of power in relation to class and gender difference.
As brilliant a piece of interiorized acting as you are ever going to see [on María Onetto as Verónica].
THE HEADLESS WOMAN is not a narrative in any conventional sense. It becomes, in the wake of this inciting incident,
the description of a condition of consciousness. We are all, to one degree or another, headless women.”
– Amy Taubin, Film Comment

“[Lucrecia Martel’s] strongest to date!” – J. Hoberman, Village Voice

“Her droll, enigmatic fable about bourgeois discombobulation… has the comic timing of Samuel Beckett,
the composition and color sense of William Eggleston and the very peculiar paranoid atmosphere of Lucrecia Martel. See for yourself.”
– Stuart Klawans, The Nation

“Mesmerizing! Very much its own film – and a fine one at that.” – V.A. Musetto, New York Post

“A complex and devastating parable…demonstrates Martel’s extraordinary cinematic vision and skill with actors.”
– Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

From the director of LA CIENAGA, comes this oblique, compelling tale of a poster child for the South American haute bourgeoisie: blonde and bland, perfectly coiffed and made-up, usually sitting behind the wheel of a Mercedes. María Onetto plays a woman whose perfect life may be a dream or whose nightmare accident (was that a child her car hit? a dog? or nothing?) may indicate that her entire existence lacks reality. Critics have referenced David Lynch and Luis Buñuel as forerunners for the kind of hyper-reality the film exudes. When the film played at last fall’s New York Film Festival, the Village Voice’s J. Hoberman wrote: “The third feature by Lucrecia Martel, leading director of the Argentine renaissance, is her strongest to date – at the very least, 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.”

Click here for Amy Taubin's interview with Lucrecia Martel for Film Comment

ARGENTINA / FRANCE / ITALY / SPAIN • 2008 • 87 MINS.
IN SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES • STRAND RELEASING