VOD film review: Trenque Lauquen – Parts 1 and 2
Review Overview
Mystery
8Journey
8Storytelling
8Matthew Turner | On 16, Dec 2023
Director: Laura Citarella
Cast: Laura Paredes, Ezequiel Pierri, Rafael Spregelburd, Elisa Carricajo, Verónica Llinás, Juliana Muras
Certificate: 12
Directed by Laura Citarella, this slow-burn Argentine mystery drama unfolds over two parts, clocking in at over four hours in total. That might sound daunting, but it’s an absorbing, frequently mesmerising and ultimately rewarding experience, albeit not in the ways you might think.
Composed of 12 different chapters, the film is set in and around the titular town of Trenque Lauquen, southwest of Buenos Aires. As the film opens, local botanist – and sometime radio show guest – Laura (Laura Paredes) has gone missing, and two men are looking for her. They are her academic boyfriend, Rafa (Rafael Spregelburd) and Chicho (Ezequiel Pierri), a local man who had been helping her on a research project and driving her around.
As Rafa and Chicho talk to various people who might have seen Laura, a series of nested flashbacks unfold, revealing increasingly intriguing mystery elements. These include a secret romance that Laura uncovered (with letters hidden in pages of books), and the fact that she and Chicho might have become lovers, after becoming jointly obsessed with the love story they were following.
Somewhere around the halfway point, someone asks Rafa and Chicho what makes them so sure Laura wants to be found in the first place, both reframing the mystery and underlining the difference in perception between Laura and the two men in her life. Accordingly, Part 2 switches tack, continuing the story from Laura’s point of view and introducing an entirely different mystery, this time involving two lesbians secretly raising a strange creature that they found in the lake that gives the town its name (Trenque Lauquen means “round lake”).
It should be clear from that synopsis that this isn’t the sort of mystery that is going to offer easy answers. However, once you adjust to that idea – and the way the story shifts makes it pretty clear that will be the case – you start to take pleasure in the investigation itself, the process of it and the storytelling behind it, along with all the other diversions the structure provides.
The pacing of the film is understandably slow, but it’s never dull – the conversations between Rafa and Chicho (and between Laura and Chicho, in flashback) are consistently compelling, and you don’t regret the time spent with the richly drawn characters. The same is true of the love story, with Citarella herself playing the woman in brief flashback scenes.
On top of that, Citarella has a strong sense of place, with her use of landscape recalling Antonioni movies – an influence that is further underscored by the fact that the first chapter of the film is called L’Avventura. The stunningly shot, frequently misty vistas are simultaneously mysterious and oppressive, making you wonder what other stories they might be hiding.
This is an engaging and beautifully made mystery drama that takes you to places you’re not expecting and leaves you with something to think about. All in all, a satisfying journey.