The Headless Woman Archives - The Playlist

The Playlist’s Best Films Of 2009 (*Editor’s Picks Only)

Rodrigo Perez — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:45:00 +0000

Getting a definitive top 10 out of the Playlist team is hard.

There’s a lot of differing opinions and some writers, due to their locations (we’ve got people in the U.K., Australia, Canada and U.S. places other than NY/LA), don’t get to see most of the year’s films until January 2010. And yes, we’re deep in January now, but some are still making their way through everything (example, “The Lovely Bones” just hit wide this past weekend).

Continue reading The Playlist’s Best Films Of 2009 (*Editor’s Picks Only) at The Playlist.

Lucrecia Martel’s Sci-Fi Horror Project Might Not Come Next?

Rodrigo Perez — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:40:00 +0000

So several times now, we’ve effusively and enthusiastically discussed Argentinean filmmaker Lucrecia Martel’s latest picture, “The Headless Woman,” which is a woozy and disorienting picture essentially about psychic disembodiment. Or perhaps more simply about losing yourself after an accidental bump on the head in a non-life-threatening car crash prompts a kind of mental vertigo (apropos considering the subtle Kim Novak/Hitchcock allusions in the film).

So the big question: What’s next? It’s a genre that could put her on the map on a grander international scale the way “Let The Right One In” left its foreign film ghetto because it had vampires.

Continue reading Lucrecia Martel’s Sci-Fi Horror Project Might Not Come Next? at The Playlist.

In Theaters: ‘Inglourious Basterds’ ‘Headless Woman’ ‘The Baader-Meinhof Complex’

Hunter McClamrock — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:47:00 +0000

Following up on last week’s “District 9” and “Ponyo,” film lovers across the country have even more reasons to celebrate as one of the most anticipated releases of the year opens at multiplexes nationwide. Late summer has never been so good.

In Wide Release: Opening on what has to be a record (for Tarantino) 3000+ screens, “Inglourious Basterds” has been on everyone’s radar for years now. You’ve probably read the script, watched each little bit of media on the web, analyzed every ridiculous interview, and maybe even purchased the souvenir mug.

Continue reading In Theaters: ‘Inglourious Basterds’ ‘Headless Woman’ ‘The Baader-Meinhof Complex’ at The Playlist.

Exclusive: Small Role-Out Schedule For The Enigmatic ‘The Headless Woman’

Rodrigo Perez — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:36:00 +0000

Yesterday we waxed effusive about arthouse doyenne, Argentinean filmmaker Lucrecia Martel, who’s fabulously formalist picture, “The Headless Woman,” hits theaters this weekend in super-limited release (more below). We first saw the picture, her third feature-length effort, last October at the 2008 New York Film Festival, and were immediately bowled over by the strange rhythms, odd framing and spacial relationships.

Martel is essentially a master of sound and wide-scope framing, acutely understanding the psychology of the camera and how what you choose to show and not show to the viewer affects their state of mind.

Continue reading Exclusive: Small Role-Out Schedule For The Enigmatic ‘The Headless Woman’ at The Playlist.

‘The Headless Woman’ Hits Theaters This Weekend: Why You Should Attend…If You Can

Rodrigo Perez — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:26:00 +0000

Hate to keep harping on about this, but when film writers and bloggers bitch about the small, not-wide-enough release of indie films they tend to be male dominated pictures; war films (“The Hurt Locker”), sci-fi films (“Moon”) or vampire films that happen to also be foreign films (“Let The Right One In” — when was the last time you remember the geek sites being excited for a Swedish picture?)

The complaining is always highly selective and conveniently omits that plenty of great films get indie or limited small releases every month, but no one bats an eye or campaigns for them because… they don’t have explosions, blood or clones?

Continue reading ‘The Headless Woman’ Hits Theaters This Weekend: Why You Should Attend…If You Can at The Playlist.

‘The Headless Woman’ Finally Gets U.S. Distribution; Coming In August Via Strand

Rodrigo Perez — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:12:00 +0000

One of our favorite films of 2008 — one that technically didn’t come out in ’08 — Lucrecia Martel’s disorienting and eerie, “The Headless Woman” (“La Mujer Sin Cabeza”) is finally coming Stateside via Strand Pictures in August.

We’ve been championing this film since we saw it at the New York Film Festival last fall and were bowled over by its intentionally discombobulating eschewing of film grammar (no establishing shots, breaking the invisible line, clipped editing and strange spatial frame relation).

Continue reading ‘The Headless Woman’ Finally Gets U.S. Distribution; Coming In August Via Strand at The Playlist.

‘Tony Manero’ Coming Out Via Lorber Films In The Spring

Rodrigo Perez — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:02:00 +0000

Let’s repeat ourselves for about the 10 thousandth time: the 2008 New York Film Festival was excellent and many, many fantastic international films had their U.S. debut there like, the Palme d’Or winner “The Class”, the Mexican and super dynamic Godard/”Bonnie & Clyde” homage, “Voy A Explotar,” Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s immaculately crafted and internalized family drama “Tokyo Sonata,” and many, many more.

Most have finally received U.S. distribution, but not all of them. One late addition to the pact is Pablo Larrain’s “Tony Manero,” the Chilean political-metaphor drama about a psychotic disco-dancer obsessed with John Travolta’s character in “Saturday Night Fever.”

Chosen as Chile’s official Oscar contender for 2008, it didn’t make the Oscar final five in the Best Foreign Film category, but it’s a strong film nonetheless that’s both moving, darkly comical and at times, downright creepy.

Continue reading ‘Tony Manero’ Coming Out Via Lorber Films In The Spring at The Playlist.

The Playlist’s Top 20 Films Of 2008

Rodrigo Perez — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:14:00 +0000

It’s that time of year again. Remember the tried and true formula: experience + resonance= fantastic film. As we all know art is not made within the confines of a calendar year and release dates are arbitrary, or at least monetarily driven, but that said, here’s what we have for the last 12 months of the year that was 2008.

A terrible year for movies? For American mainstream films, mostly, it was sub par overall.

Continue reading The Playlist’s Top 20 Films Of 2008 at The Playlist.

‘The Headless Woman’ Tops IndieWire’s Best Undistributed Movie Poll Of 2008

Rodrigo Perez — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 00:46:00 +0000

Speaking of IndieWire, their critics Top 10 picks (and the ones that represent the IndieWire’s 100 Critics Picks Poll) are tied to films that were officially released in North America in 2008. But many of their critics saw tons of films this year at festivals that weren’t technically 2008 films because they have yet to find North American distribution.

One of our absolute favorite films of the year (we’re not tied by the IndieWire rules), a film we’ve been going on about given any small chance we could (which wasn’t often enough, frankly considering how much we’ve mouthed off about it in person) was, Lucrecia Martel’s “The Headless Woman” and the same 100 critics polled by IndieWire picked her third feature-length film as the Best Undistributed Movie of the year.

Continue reading ‘The Headless Woman’ Tops IndieWire’s Best Undistributed Movie Poll Of 2008 at The Playlist.

New York Film Festival: That’s A Wrap

Rodrigo Perez — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:32:00 +0000

We burned the candle at both ends in the home stretch of the 46th Annual New York Film Festival, didn’t have a life and didn’t get much sleep, but it was worth it. We felt like it was like being at Cannes, we saw such remarkable international fare.

There were 28 films shown in total and we saw 18 of them which isn’t bad number all things considered.
Of course we saw some of the NYFF pictures at early TIFF, including, Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” Mike Leigh’s exuberant “Happy Go Lucky,” the Cannes-celebrated “Gommorah,” Steven Soderbergh’s sprawling and unsentimental “Che,” and “Waltz With Bashir,” the animated documentary about the Beirut massacre during the Lebannon war in 1982, by director Ari Folman.

Continue reading New York Film Festival: That’s A Wrap at The Playlist.

NYFF: Two Hemispheres Of The Cerebral – ‘Afterschool’ & ‘The Headless Woman’

Rodrigo Perez — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:16:00 +0000

We just got back from two screenings at the New York Film Festival and wanted to bang out some quick thoughts on each film as we probably won’t have time to write full-length reviews until next week at this busy rate.

It was interesting to note how both films seemed to embody cerebral and intellectual traits both from the aesthetics themselves and the filmmakers who crafted them, but while Lucreia Martel’s “The Headless Woman” (“La Mujer sin cabeza“) was a dizzying (and striking) portrait of a woman in distress that made one lose its equilibrium in moments, Antonio Campos teen prepschool brand of voyeurstic heady-ness felt rather cold and clinical at times.

Continue reading NYFF: Two Hemispheres Of The Cerebral – ‘Afterschool’ & ‘The Headless Woman’ at The Playlist.