“There’s some kind of female behaviour that I can see reflected in literature and cinema, and yet I find it so enigmatic in life that I felt I needed to film it. I’m fascinated by that which is irreducibly female, that which also baffles us men. I think women inhabit both sadness and happiness in a manner that’s foreign to us, they reason and behave according to a different, unpredictable, zigzagging logic,” states Argentine filmmaker Santiago Palavecino ( Otra vuelta, La vida nueva) about his latest opus Algunas chicas (Some Girls), which had its more than auspicious world première at the 2013 Venice Film Festival, and also won the Best Cinematography award in the international competition of the BAFICI that same year.
And yes, Algunas chicas is all about women. Loosely based on Italian writer Cesare Pavese’s Among Women Only, Palavecino’s third opus fiercely examines female depression, seclusion, abandonment, and suicidal tendencies too. Fortunately, none of these issues are tackled from a clinical viewpoint — that would’ve been too easy to imagine. Instead, the angle here is downright existentialist, which makes the drama irresistibly volatile.
The story goes like this: Celina (Cecilia Rainero) flees from a marital crisis to visit an old friend and her boyfriend who live in a house in the countryside. But the panorama is far from welcoming: her friend’s stepdaughter, Paula (Agostina López), has had a suicide attempt and is trying (not very successfully) to overcome her depression. Such news trigger unexpected, obscure memories that Cecilia won’t share with anyone, least of all Paula’s off-beat friends, Nene (Ailín Salas), who’s a bit of a psychic, and the well-to-do María (Agustina Muñoz), a nihilist per definition. Let alone the nearby small town and the thick woods, ominous and mysterious at once.
Such a story can be told in a number of ways. However, not all of them would do the trick. Smartly enough, Palavecino goes for an elliptical narrative that often works wonders. Instead of asserting what’s happening and why, the filmmaker opts to suggest that the whole, if it exists as such, could only be a series of disjointed fragments linked via free association rather than rational thought. You see the signifiers, but that which is signified is, for the most part, elusive. The queries are there, and yet there are no conclusive answers of any kind. For one, Palavecino doesn’t seem to have them. Neither do the characters. What matters here is what’s left unsaid, what cannot be grasped.
Consider that depression goes beyond words and cannot be discussed. Those who are depressed are absent from the world, they cannot talk about what’s happening to them. In fact, some of these women are such islands unto themselves that expressing their most intimate feelings is a true tour de force. So instead of articulate words, there are the unstable moods, the gloomy atmosphere, and the characters’ erratic behaviour. Also, there are long silences, the secrecy, and the small talk - the only possible kind of talk.
Even if Algunas chicas begins on a realistic note, soon enough a surreal, dream-like air permeates it all as the inner selves of these girls surface and invade the scene — the dream sequences with the swimming-pool, and the woods’ sequence with an unknown animal (is it an animal?) are gorgeously shot, with no pretentiousness whatsoever. As the different levels of reality tend to overlap, a new and disturbingly eerie scenario unfolds. Yet the supernatural element is never presented as such. It’s just there; it’s probably been there for ages. Like the girls’ pain.
As you’d expect coming from seasoned cinematographer Fernando Lockett, the cinematography is highly stylish, but it’s never ornamental. Instead, it’s a major narrative tool to express what lies at the core. And while the overall atmosphere is mostly mesmerizing, that is not to say it’s welcoming. Just like the smart sound design by Federico Esquerro and Santiago Fumagalli, which reveals an undercurrent of darkness. In this sense, voluntarily or not, Palavecino reworks some notions of David Lynch’s aesthetics with remarkable brio, without ever being self-indulgent or ostentatious. That’s to be celebrated.
Production notes:
Algunas chicas / Some Girls (Argentina, 2014) Written and directed by Santiago Palavecino. With Cecilia Rainero, Agostina López, Agustina Muñoz, Ailín Salas, Agustina Liendo, Alan Pauls, Juan Barberini, Pedro Merlo, Germán de Silva, Edgardo Cozarinsky. Produced by Agustina Costa Varsi, Fernando Manero, Santiago Palavecino, VOLPE FILMS. Cinematography: Fernando Lockett. Art direction: Victoria Marotta. Editing: Delfina Castagnino, Andrés Pepe Estrada. Sound: Federico Esquerro, Santiago Fumagalli. Music: Agustina Crespo. Costumes: Valentina Luppino. Running time: 100 minutes.
