Hacker Cinema
La Ciénaga
2001 · Film · 101 min
Directed by Lucrecia Martel
Amid the sweltering summer heat in northern Argentina, two middle-class families retreat to a crumbling country estate and a modest townhouse, where strained relationships, simmering tensions, and the presence of children and servants quietly expose the fractures of family life. Between idle days, gossip, and unspoken desires, the boundaries of class, tradition, and faith are reflected in their everyday interactions.
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3 comments on Hacker News
Favorite movie lists are somewhat BS. At least for me, my favorite movies evolve constantly. It depends on what I've seen recently, what's been on the forefront of my mind, my mood, etc. Not to mention there's movies that I find fascinating that I may not love. Or movies that had a profound effect on me that I'm not jumping to rewatch. Someone like Kurosawa has likely seen thousands of movies. This is likely a small snapshot into a larger universe of his personal cinema.
Instead of lists, I love the Criterion setup of interviewing the person and having them talk about each film and how it impacted their lives. It's far more interesting to hear why Barry Jenkins loved La Cienaga than to see it on his list at #10.
I understand what you're getting at with the quite different, immersive style of Stalker. I don't necessarily agree that the lack of connection is necessarily due to people being accustomed to "voyeuristic and pornographic [experiences]". Sure, there's plenty of movies like that and many who would dislike Tarkovsky are devotees of that style.
But one can be a lover of subtle, beautiful cinema and still find Tarkovsky boring. I can easily sit through Nashville or Beau Travail or La Cienaga and still find Tarkovsky boring. Indeed, attributing dislike of Tarkovsky to being unsophisticated in one's taste is precisely what I was critiquing in my previous comment. Tarkovsky is not the arbiter of one's film taste.
I have mixed feelings about Tarkovsky. He is certainly profoundly important. His sensuality is unmatched. Whether it's the perfect use of sound (endless dripping water, the ringing of a fallen cup), the incredible imagery or the beautiful stories (I think about the bell story in Andrei Rublev a lot), Tarkovsky is the king of making you feel the movie.
That said, I don't worship at the altar of Tarkovsky. I don't love that his movies have this impenetrable length. I don't love that his movies inevitably have some long philosophical lecture by a male character while the women stay to the sides, often silent. I will sound like a petulant digital native, but I have been bored by a Tarkovsky.
Too often Tarkovsky is used as this unquestionably brilliant artist. To appreciate him is to be a true cinemaphile, while to hate him is to indicate your pedestrian tastes. I don't agree. There should be no shame in being bored by Stalker, in not getting Andrei Rublev, in finding The Sacrifice a little too navel gazing.
If I had to explain Tarkovsky to someone who doesn't watch art movies, I'd say that he's like the Velvet Underground. Unless you have a particular taste, you probably won't enjoy songs like Heroin or Venus in Furs. But you'll definitely enjoy the music made by people who did like Heroin or Venus in Furs. You don't have to enjoy Tarkovsky. But watch some of his movies, and you'll start to have flashes of recognition in movies like Arrival, La Cienaga, The New World, etc.