Holy Girl

Holy Girl (La Nina Santa, 2004), Dir. Lurecia Martel

Julia: I loved this beautiful Argentine film that showed up on our Netflix queue for reasons we can't remember. The movie is set in a hotel where Amalia, a teenager, lives with her mother, a beautiful but brittle woman who has a very contentious relationship with Amalia's absent father. Amalia meets Dr. Jano, a physician staying at the hotel for a conference, when he luridly rubs against her in a crowd. She becomes obsessed with the doctor, and the story that follows is one of guilt, sensuality, family and loneliness. It sounds a little odd because it is a little odd. But the subtleties of this movie - and the wonderful acting - made it one that stayed with me for days. Well worth watching. (5/5)

Phillip: Agreed. Right from the start, you can tell the director knows exactly what she’s doing: it’s hard to figure out what’s going on and who’s who for the first few juxtaposed short scenes, but you can tell it’s all building towards something rich and unusual, that the obscurity is quite intentional and will be effective. And it is. Great acting, too – and a great finish. Lynchian touches all along the way, though with a smiling rather than spooky quality to them. In the end the coolest thing about the film, for me, was the way it brought into relief the similarities between the two kinds of desire that circulate around the two different senses of the word “climax” – narrative and sexual. (5/5)