Establishing the female gaze: narrative subversion in Lucrecia Martel’s La niña santa (2004) and La ciénaga (2001)

Abstract

The films of Lucrecia Martel have provided a locus for academic debate about Argentine art cinema, counter cinema, and the “female/feminist gaze” (Slobodian 2012, The Comparatist 36: 160). This article will build on this scholarship in order to consider the ways in which Martel’s films negotiate the problems of constructing a female gaze through the layering and subversion of multiple, transnational, cinematic conventions. While drawing upon Laura Mulvey’s “negative aesthetics” (Butler 2002) and concepts of “slow cinema” (de Luca 2014), this article will not attempt to define or analyse Martel’s aesthetics through a single set of conventions or within a particular cinematic movement. Rather, it will explore how Martel’s filmmaking operates within interstitial spaces, and indeed creates spaces of contestation between and within mainstream, counter, and art cinemas, in which female cinematic expression can be asserted. This will be demonstrated through analysis of the visual and aural aesthetics within La niña santa (The Holy Girl, 2004) and La ciénaga (The Swamp, 2001).¹

¹ I would like to thank Lauren Rea and Deborah Shaw for their critical readings of earlier versions of this article and for the insights provided for its development.

Keywords:

• Argentine cinema
• female gaze
• feminist film
• Lucrecia Martel
• spectatorship

Notes

¹ I would like to thank Lauren Rea and Deborah Shaw for their critical readings of earlier versions of this article and for the insights provided for its development.

2. I am grateful to Deborah Shaw for suggesting Tiago de Luca’s work on slow cinema.

3. See, for example, Cécile François’ (2009) discussion of close-ups in La niña santa.

4. Laura Martins (2011) offers a detailed analysis of haptic aesthetics in La ciénaga.