La Cienaga

an unconventional film by Lucrecia Martel and Hugo Colace, ADF

The Argentinean film La Cienaga (The Swamp) has captured worldwide attention, garnering awards at Sundance, Berlin and Toulouse film festivals.

	The family in La Cienaga. ©2001 COWBOY PICTURES

Directed by Lucrecia Martel and photographed by Hugo Colace, ADF, La Cienaga follows two families through a hot, muggy, summer in northwest Argentina.

“La Cienaga doesn’t obey conventional narrative rules,” says Martel. “There is no hidden truth to be found by the heroes, nor is there any link between cause and effect in the events affecting two families. Rather than building up to a dramatic crescendo, the film proceeds through an accumulation of innocuous situations, which often lead to nothing, but sometimes end fatally.”

The story revolves around Mecha and her cousin Tali. Mecha is a 50-something-year-old mother of several teenagers. She and her husband both drink too much. They live in the family’s rundown country estate, complete with a filthy pool and lush vegetation ready to overtake the house. Tali lives with her small brood of loud children and her husband in the city of La Cienaga. The two families are brought together under the same roof when Mecha has an accident and becomes bedridden.