2005: Mercedes Morán in "The Holy Girl"
Thursday, August 13, 2020 at 9:00PM by Nick Taylor
Few working directors are as exciting as Argentianian genius Lucrecia Martel. To talk about her work means to talk about her bold experiments with lensing and editing, her immaculately controlled sound design, her unusual risks with structure and dense layering of themes in her screenplays, all capped off with a very particular sense of humor. Martel’s films don’t immediately spring to mind as performance venues, but one of the many (many) things I love among her small but indomitable filmography is her ability to coax tonally compelling characterizations from her actors, rather than overwhelming them under the weight of her own directorial idiosyncrasies. Daniel Giménez Cacho is able to find a million minute gradations of wounded pride, misplaced vanity, and diminished hope in Zama, keying to Martel’s riskiest wavelength by resourcefully flexing a very deadpan poker face. The many women running around La Ciénaga are charged with their own peculiar energies that combine and differentiate from each other in endlessly fascinating ways.
Mercedes Morán, a high point in the latter film, returns for The Holy Girl in one of its main roles, and she not only delivers the best performance in the film but sets a high bar for what an actor can do in Martel’s canon...