A Study Of Lucrecia Martel’s Film Art

Lucrecia Martel is an icon of contemporary Argentine cinema,one of the flagship figures of the new Argentine cinema that took off in the 1990 s and received international attention.Her first feature film The Swamp(2001)won the Alfred Bauer Prize at the 51 st Berlin International Film Festival,The Holy Girl(2004)and The Headless Woman(2008)were selected in the main competition at Cannes and Zama(2017)was selected for screening at the Venice Film Festival to critical acclaim.She has served on the juries of the Berlin,Cannes and Venice Film Festivals,and in 2019 she was invited to further expand her international reach by becoming President of the Jury at the Venice Film Festival.Known among her fellow neo-Argentine filmmakers for her experimental style,Martel sees the "real" as a mixture of reality and fantasy,a pervasive uncertainty in her films,and a vertigo of temporal processes and spatial orientation.She regulates the rhythm of the narrative with perceptual immersions,interruptions and crises,practising a body-centred narrative strategy and an audio-visual style that focuses on the sense of touch.This study places Lucretia Martel within the framework of auteur studies and explores the cultural connotations and characteristics of her works.The first chapter will first begin with the social context of Martel’s generation,extending to the introduction of the transformation of filmmaking and the changing environment of the film industry.Secondly,it will introduce Martel’s own cultural background and the connection between this background and her filmmaking experience and concepts.The second chapter will follow the first one,taking into account the socio-historical development of Argentina,shifting from outside the film to the cultural interpretation born from the analysis of the interior of the film.In the third chapter,this study will analyze Martel’s unique narrative characteristics from the perspective of narratology.The fourth chapter will dissect Martel’s audiovisual style from three aspects:visual presentation,camera movement,and soundscape construction.