The Headless Woman (2007)

After reading about its premise and checking out what were mostly very positive reviews, I was highly intrigued by Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman. It's about a woman, Veronica (Maria Onetto), who hits something with her car. She thinks it might have been a person, but she's afraid to get out of the car and becomes disoriented, so she keeps driving. She spends the next week trying to figure out if she has killed someone. That's all the information we have for nearly the entirety of the film.

I think this simplicity is probably the film's greatest strength. There is no attempt to turn this story into a suspenseful thriller or even to make it seem like a movie at all; the narrative plays a very diminished role here, so that all we are left with is the film's realism. We are intended to be more concerned with Veronica's state of mind than with finding out what actually happened on that road.

I was not completely blown away by The Headless Woman, but Martel does some nice things with it. There are several shots in which supporting characters carry on everyday conversations in the background or off camera, and Veronica's face takes up most of the shot, in the foreground, as she worries and ignores the others. This is an effective device, and Onneto sells it with good acting, but it happens so often it begins to feel redundant. If simplicity is the film's strength, it's also its weakness; this story probably could have been told in thirty minutes.

There's another thing Martel does where an actor's face will be blocked from the view of the camera by something while he or she is speaking. This happens a lot, and I'm not really sure what the use of it is. I find it a little annoying.

The Headless Woman is certainly an interesting film, but ultimately I think it has very little to say. But I do get the feeling that a second viewing would illuminate much more, so maybe I'll watch it again and my ideas about it will change. It merits a reconsideration.

Note: 2009 U.S. release.