The closest equivalent to Lucrecia Martel's "The Headless Woman" that I
can think of is Michaelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-Up". On the surface, of
course, they are very different films but thematically they share a
similar conundrum and density. An affluent Argentinian woman, (she's a
dentist), is driving home when she hits something or someone on the
road. She stops momentarily and, without getting out off the car, drives
on. Over the following days she becomes convinced she has killed
someone but then, as she tries to retrace the events of that weekend, it
becomes less and less clear to her and to us, what might have occurred.
Is this a film about guilt? Is Vero, the woman in question, aware of
what she has done and is she repressing it or are all her suppositions
simply the result of a head injury sustained in the accident and are
nothing more than a kind of dream or nightmare? Yes, this is a difficult
film and requires a good deal of effort but the pace is deliberately
slow giving us time to think about what is happening. The film may not
provide us with the answers we might want but then I don't believe
providing us with answers is what cinema should necessarily be about so
long as it gives us the questions. There are questions galore in "The Headless Woman" and it simply shouldn't be missed.
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