Lucrecia Martel

La Ciénaga

La Ciénaga

The release of Lucrecia Martel’s La Ciénaga heralded the arrival of an astonishingly vital and original voice in Argentine cinema. With a radical and disturbing take on narrative, beautiful cinematography, and a highly sophisticated use of on- and offscreen sound, Martel turns her tale of a dissolute bourgeois extended family, whiling away the hours of one sweaty, sticky summer, into a cinematic marvel. This visceral take on class, nature, sexuality, and the ways that political turmoil and social stagnation can manifest in human relationships is a drama of extraordinary tactility, and one of the great contemporary film debuts.

Film Info

  • Argentina
  • 2001
  • 101 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.85:1
  • Spanish
  • Spine #743

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New 4K digital film transfer, approved by director Lucrecia Martel, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New interview with Martel
  • New interview with filmmaker Andrés Di Tella about Martel and the film
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar David Oubiña

    New cover by Fred Davis

Purchase Options

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New 4K digital film transfer, approved by director Lucrecia Martel, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New interview with Martel
  • New interview with filmmaker Andrés Di Tella about Martel and the film
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar David Oubiña

    New cover by Fred Davis
La Ciénaga
Cast
Martín Adjemián
Gregorio
Diego Baenas
Joaquín
Leonora Balcarce
Verónica
Silvia Baylé
Mercedes
Sofia Bertolotto
Momi
Juan Cruz Bordeu
José
Graciela Borges
Mecha
Noelia Bravo Herrera
Agustina
Maria Micol Ellero
Mariana
Andrea López
Isabel
Sebastián Montagna
Luciano
Mercedes Morán
Tali
Daniel Valenzuela
Rafael
Franco Veneranda
Martín
Fabio Villafañe
Perro
Credits
Director
Lucrecia Martel
Writer
Lucrecia Martel
Producer
Lita Stantic
Coproducers
Diego Guebel
Coproducers
Ana Aizenberg
Coproducers
Mario Pergolini
Spain coproducer
José María Morales
Director of photography
Hugo Colace
Editor
Santiago Ricci
Art director
Graciela Oderigo
Set designer
Cristina Nigro
Assistant director
Fabiana Tiscornia
Line producer
Marta Parga
Executive production assistant
Matiás Mosteirín
Sound
Hervé Guyader
Sound
Emmanuel Croset
Sound
Guido Berenblum
Sound
Adrián de Michele
Sound postproduction producer
Miléna Poylo

Current

Lucrecia Martel and the New Argentine Cinema
Lucrecia Martel and the New Argentine Cinema
Our release of the spellbinding La Ciénaga marks not only the brilliant Lucrecia Martel’s entrance into the Criterion Collection but also our first title from the New Argentine Cinema. To get a better idea of the importance and finer aesthetic poi…
Three Reasons: La Ciénaga
Three Reasons: La Ciénaga
Those are our three reasons. What are yours?
La Ciénaga: What’s Outside the Frame
La Ciénaga: What’s Outside the Frame

Scenes without endings, sounds without corresponding images, actions without seeming motivation—Lucrecia Martel’s sense-heightening debut offers a cinema of subtraction.

By David Oubiña

Nina Menkes’s Top 10
Nina Menkes’s Top 10

The director of Queen of Diamonds shares a list of favorite films, including uncompromising classics of world cinema that reveal the mysteries of the human condition.

Aubrey Plaza’s Top 10
Aubrey Plaza’s Top 10

The star of Emily the Criminal and Ingrid Goes West chooses favorite films by John Cassavetes, Ingmar Bergman, and other art-house masters.

Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Top 10
Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Top 10

The director of Aquarius and Bacurau shares his favorite Criterion releases, paying special attention to unorthodox studio productions and underappreciated masterpieces.

Dennis Lim’s Top 10
Dennis Lim’s Top 10

In the spirit of a double-feature series at Film at Lincoln Center currently underway, the venerable institution’s director of programming has put together ten pairings that highlight thematic and stylistic parallels throughout our collection.