1 - Metamorphosis and Persistence: An Introduction

Summary

The name ‘Lucrecia Martel’ has, over the course of a career spanning more than thirty years, found itself associated with a strangely consistent set of epithets. The Argentine film director and her work are described as ‘opaque’, ‘enigmatic’, ‘ambiguous’ and ‘beguilingly peculiar’ − indeed, all of these adjectives occur in just one article in Variety, published in 2020. Some of this language, particularly in its manifestations in the anglophone press, can be attributed to the exoticisation of a Latin American woman who has achieved the status of global auteur more often reserved for men hailing from the Global North. Yet there is no doubt that Martel's body of work is in many senses unusual: alongside features that have won critical acclaim across the world are to be found short films, including one made for a clothing brand, and the art direction of a concert tour.

An indication of Martel's remarkable global status can be seen in a mural in Montevideo, Uruguay. The vast majority of neighbourhood cinemas in Uruguay, as in Argentina and elsewhere, have been demolished or converted into supermarkets, garages or churches, at the same time as a boom in internationally funded multiplexes and the removal of policies that encourage cultural diversity and protect cultural heritage. Yet in the heart of Montevideo can be found the Cinemateca Uruguaya, the last of the old cinemas on the city's famed Avenida 18 de Julio to remain standing, thanks to its faithful audience. In April 2017, during the Tourism Week introduced by the secular state to coincide with the Christian Holy Week, and in the context of the 35^th Festival Cinematográfico Internacional del Uruguay (Uruguay International Film Festival), the facade of this temple of cinema was renovated with a one-off mural, created by an artistic collective. From left to right, gazing straight at the viewer, and holding a megaphone, a crow, a surrealist door and a photo camera respectively, the figures of Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel and Lucrecia Martel emerge from on high. As in religious prints, each has a halo, indicating their divine nature. Under the slogan ‘Festival empieza con Fe’ (‘Festival begins with Faith’), the profane devotion to cinema and its saints − the directors − was accompanied by prayers and commandments.