The edge of the frame is active
In La Ciénaga and Zama, events beyond sight interrupt and compete with what appears central, making listening a way of recognising crowded social space.
Director listening trail
Lucrecia Martel
An editorial profile and selected route through a filmmaker's recurring sonic ideas.
Featured filmmaker
Martel's films refuse to make the image the centre of the world. Voices, insects, water, weather and nearby bodies reveal social arrangements that the frame cannot master.
A selected route through observable patterns and published interviews.
Bodies are acoustic
Breathing, speech, water, fabric and proximity place characters in physical relation before plot explains those relations.
Period without acoustic nostalgia
Zama uses natural calls approaching electronic timbres and an unstable musical tone so colonial history never settles into a safely antique world.