Too many of us come from small towns and have met 'wild' country kids that aren't at all the virtuous innocents presented in normal movies. The pack of undisciplined cousins in La Ciénaga are basically "nice" yet indulge in activities that will make a responsible parent's hair stand on end. Boys barely out of kindergarten are 'hunting' in the woods with loaded shotguns and risking blowing each other to bits. Everyone 'camps out' sleeping in the same rooms while handsome male cousins think nothing of drifting into the bathroom while a female cousin is bathing. Everybody is at risk simply by swimming in a pool that has to be a major health risk.

Nobody is in charge, particularly not the adults. Father refuses to lift a finger or think about anything but the color of his hair; when his wife is at risk from bleeding to death, his solution is to tell his underage, unlicensed daugher to drive her to the doctor. Mother spends a lot of time in bed with her own son but banishes dad to the back room. She openly treats the mostly Indio servants as racial degenerates. Mom talks about her kids in the abstract, between sips of wine. One of them has apparently been living for some time with one eye missing from a shooting accident, yet steps to mend his disfigured face are still in the planning stages. The kids range from cluelessly unaware (the sweet daughter in love with the maid) to knowingly perverse to openly degenerate: The one-eyed kid echoes his parent's prejudices by accusing the Indios of raping the family pets and threatening to wipe them out with his shotgun.

Just about the only relief from any of this comes from the hardworking city father, who disapproves of his kids spending a week at the ranch. He's the one who finally acts to buy the family school supplies, and he's patiently on task to see that his cute youngest son's dental anomaly is properly treated. He's an oasis in a film dedicated to the depiction of banal bourgeois decadence.

Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel paints a vivid picture of a particularly nasty situation that may hit a solid nerve with Latin American audiences. It's certainly helped find her some recognition on the festival circuit. But the meaning behind her appalling family portrait will elude all viewers execept those predisposed to misanthropic world-views. The fate of a steer mired in a mudpit is far too symbolic, and the final image of a forgotten child is all too conveniently cruel.

In my more adventurous movie viewing youth I caught an obscure Argentinian film called La Muralla Verde, a thematic updating of the "Selva" thread in South American literature, about men who wander into the vast forests and jungles, invariably to be swallowed up by them. The death of a child is central to that film as well. Perhaps La Ciénaga is Lucrecia Martel's reworking of the Selva theme, about affluent modern Argentinians not killed but instead transformed by the savagery of the wild.

Making a film for a particular cognoscenti is no crime, yet La Ciénaga isn't going to linger as much more than an unpleasant experience. For the majority it will play like a perverse Yours, Mine and Ours set in Hell. It's slow torture, but an honest slow torture.

Perhaps in another year it will click and I'll be recommending it as a masterpiece. Maybe it's the unrecognized beginning of a new genre movement.

Home Vision's DVD of La Ciénaga is a sparkling enhanced transfer of a carefully shot, good looking movie. The beauty of rural Argentina makes for a sharp contrast with the disturbing drama, yet the director avoids visuals that are simply decorative.

A glance around the internet seems to peg La Ciénaga as one of those films that earns critical kudos but isn't particularly inspirational. The curious will be interested in seeing an earlier Martel short film, Rey Muerto included on the disc. It's a savage piece of domestic cruelty seemingly inspired by the raw end of Latin American literature.

There's also a vague Director's Statement from Ms. Martel (a text extra) and an original theatrical trailer. B. Ruby Rich's informed insert essay does everything for La Ciénaga except give us a good reason to want to see it.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, La Ciénaga rates:
Movie: Excellent as art, but with a low watchability quotient
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: Rey Muerto, Lucrecia Martel's award-winning short film, Director's Statement, trailer, Liner notes by film professor, critic and cultural commentator B. Ruby Rich of The New York Times and The Village Voice.
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: January 30, 2004