“The Headless Woman” 4K Restoration Revives this Twisty Tale
Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman was initially released in competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. In the years since, Martel’s film has been heralded as one of the great examples of filmmaking of the twenty-first century. Courtesy of Strand Releasing, The Headless Woman has been restored in 4K from the original 35mm negative and will have a limited theatrical run at the Metrograph in New York City beginning on May 8. The Headless Woman is not an easily digestible film, but in its narrative murkiness, it creates a path of discussion about life’s ambiguities.
While driving home on a rural road, Vero (María Onetto) is distracted by the ringing of her cell phone. She reaches behind her to dig it out of her purse and hits something with her car. Vero doesn’t get out of the car or look behind her, and keeps driving after she calms down. Because Vero didn’t verify what it was she hit, the guilt slowly consumes her, seeping into her every waking moment. This paranoia puts a strain on her relationship with her husband (César Bordón) and throws her existence into turmoil.
Strand Releasing
The Headless Woman is not a film that will give the viewer a solid resolution for Vero’s predicament. The movie is defined by Vero’s all-consuming guilt. It’s the type of emotion that doesn’t have an ending. It continues to ebb and flow, clouding one’s judgment, because Vero cannot find an answer. If only she’d gotten out of the car on that day, she would have known. Instead, that decision will have lasting effects that Vero cannot stop. It’s one thing to feel guilt about something you know with utter certainty, but another experience entirely to regret something so nebulous.
In The Headless Woman, it’s clear that Vero is not doing well. She struggles to fit back into the well-established routine of her life. While the film is open-ended enough to have a multitude of interpretations, one of the routes a viewer could take is the reflection on life’s fragility. How one small event can change the trajectory of a person’s life, but that moment holds different consequences for those who have and those who have not. A person’s social class can change the outcome of their worst actions. Vero is a dentist, clearly well-to-do. While she doesn’t know what she hit, her status helps hide anything that could connect her to this hit-and-run. Her guilt doesn’t fully come from the accident, but from how easily the people around her make it all go away. The Headless Woman puts the viewer into the headspace of a woman imprisoned by her own paranoia and mirrors the constricting reality of Argentina’s political atmosphere at the time.
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