The Headless Woman

From the director of “La Cienega,” 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.”