INTRODUCTION: A RETURN AS A BEGINNING

The Headless Woman/La mujer sin cabeza (2008) returns to several of the themes and subjects that Lucrecia Martel dealt with in her two previous films − The Swamp/La ciénaga (2001) and The Holy Girl/La niña santa (2004): the characteristics of relationships in middle-class and upper-middleclass families in the north of the country, and the way the members of such classes relate to those who are considered beneath them. In this case, however, the film focuses on one in particular: the modes through which the gaze is constructed and its implications regarding the configuration of ‘reality’. This chapter intends to examine the formal resources and narrative procedures used to shape different notions of ‘reality’ in the story. It also attempts to analyse the possible correspondence between, on the one hand, the relationships that link the characters − as social subjects − and the environment they belong to and, on the other, the construction of the social scene in contemporary Argentina in terms of its history (the 1976–83 civic-military dictatorship) and of its present at the outset of the twenty-first century.

The opening scenes show a group of children laughing and running along the side of a road. They are followed by a dog. They chase each other, climb over a billboard, and jump into a dry canal that borders the road. In the next scene a group of women and children are saying goodbye to each other after a social gathering. One of the children locks himself in a car. He laughs, bangs on the windows, and refuses to open the door. The car belongs to Vero, the film's main character. She finally manages to make the child get out. ‘Don't be a brat’, she says, ‘Get out or you’ll run out of air.’ This phrase turns out to be one of the significant markers anticipating the situations that will develop from that moment on. As the woman is driving back, her mobile phone starts ringing. She bends down to answer the call and the car is stopped by a heavy bump. The phone keeps ringing for a few more seconds. The music coming from the car stereo can still be heard. There are traces of a child's hand on the car window.