62 Trenque Lauquen
- therewillbeblus
- Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm
62 Trenque Lauquen
Trenque Lauquen (LE)
A woman vanishes. Two men take to the road in search of her: they both love her. Why did she leave? This sudden escape becomes the hidden core of a number of fictions that delicately weave together: the secret of the heart of another woman, lost as well, many years ago; the secret of the life of a village in the countryside, governed by a supernatural incident that nobody seems to perceive; the secret of the plains, which never ceases to spread and devour everything. An astonishing epic of two feature-length films six years in the making, Trenque Lauquen’s playful mystery and approach to genre has been compared to Twin Peaks and The Endless. Radiance is proud to present one of the most revered works of the year, from Argentine auteur Laura Citarella and the El Pampero Cine collective.
LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES
High-Definition digital transfer
5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
Interview with director Laura Citarella
Interview with film critic David Jenkins
Trenque Laquen - A short film by Laura Citarella
Gallery of behind-the-scenes images
Newly improved English subtitle translation
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Caitlin Quinlan and Jake Cole
Limited edition of 2000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
2-discs. Extras subject to change
Cert: 12
Format: Blu-ray
Region: ABC
RAD062BDLE
EAN: 5060974681181
Release date: 27/05/24
Press:
★★★★★ With hints of a Latin American Twin Peaks or X-Files, Trenque Lauquen plucks the bizarre out of the everyday, to laid-back but altogether magical effect. - Jonathan Romney, Financial Times
★★★★★ “One of 2023’s most astonishing films” - David Jenkins, Little White Lies
★★★★★ “There are similarities with the mumblecore science fiction of Shane Carruth’s Upstream Colour and The Endless, but Trenque Lauquen daringly stakes out its own spooky terrain.” - Tara Brady, Irish Times
Last edited by therewillbeblus on Mon Jan 02, 2023 9:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- diamonds
- Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2016 2:35 pm
Re: The Films of 2022
++++++++therewillbeblus wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:42 pmTrenque Lauquen: Devoted fans of Historias extraordinarias and La Flor can rejoice with the latest multi-part cinematic labyrinth of Borgesian roots, this time from Llinás' producer, Laura Citarella. Starring and co-written by Laura Paredes, the narrative specifics of this sibylline twelve-chapter, four-hour epic mystery should remain.. well, a mystery - but it's every bit as delicious and striking in its unraveling methodology as Llinás first film, although its ambitions are less flexibly, mischievously tangled. Citarella is more interested in lucidly confronting the idea of 'mystery': the unknowability of people close to us, of ourselves and our potentials for change, the thirst for existential purpose and our relentless and obsessive pursuits to locate something meaningful for our own lives in others' stories; the drives to 'find' via escape, to 'find' in attempts to achieve intimacy, to 'be' found or to thwart the suffocation of being found through disappearance; and the mystery about which instincts are most prominent for ourselves, or in harmony with others, and how these may be inexplicably elastic. I appreciated the relatively straightforward approach to the material, which is amusingly striving for minimalism in contrast with its transparent influences. Its unveilings and synthesizing elisions are enjoyable with payoffs in sobering punchlines that come hours later much like La Flor, but the approach is consistently emotionally raw and naked about its themes, leaning heavier into dramatic connective tissue over Llinás' cheeky narrative in-jokes without sacrificing a sense of play. There are definitely some interesting bits of surrealism and absurdist humor though, especially one scene of quirky juxtaposition between gunshots occurring outside as the parties inside enjoy tranquil ambiance, or the tape that continues beyond its dramatic climax with interruptions of trivial cringe- an audial equivalent of the awkward sidewalk dance. Ultimately this is a tale of discovery - how overwhelming and alienating and insecure that process can be, but also how empowering and urgent and possible it can be at the same time; the sublime and tragic, the distinct and nebulous, the corporeal and the spiritual all merge to give us a slice of life in the form of undefinable feeling, but documented with concrete organizational structure and documented experience. The film culminates with a journey built upon the idea of another - borrowing from an earlier account within this film, but also homaging a version of L'Avventura only working in amity with its audience on multiple levels: through its gentle invitations into characterization deprived by Antonioni, and by waiting until the final shot to both rob and grant us the catharsis we seek in a symbiotic surrender to the mystery. Paredes' choice within the film is something stolen but also wholly original, like this movie, and like our lives. For who among us has not absorbed the fruits of life through inspiration from external influences in people, places, stories, or art, and how sad would our lives be without them?
Edit: I just came across this piece, which gets at the core theme quite succinctly:
A few questions I had while watching, though like my questions during La Flor, I'm certain that most of these have no explicit answer:Jake Cole wrote:The substance of each mystery that compels Laura is ultimately less important than the allure of chasing down answers and only finding more questions. Many artists have taken similarly postmodern notions of an impossible truth into realms of despair and madness, but Citarella emphasizes the liberating quality of following the rabbit hole as deep as it goes, of losing oneself as the catalyst for realizing no one has a set, permanent self to lose in the first place.
SpoilerShow1. What did the repeat words mean in the goodbye note ("Farewell, Farewell, I'm Leaving, I'm Leaving")- I think I recognized them as the song lyrics Ezekiel listens to over and over, but are they also referencing the letters or something else?
2. When Laura finally sees the creature's habitat, she says, “When I went into the room, I realized what we'd been working for all that time” but there isn't anything there to signify a higher calling. Does this broadly mean to preserve a life, or in the spirit of discovery since it's a new organism.. or simply that in seeing how much work was put into this habitat, the meaningfulness inherent in that effort alone qualifies its importance?
Note: I think this is deliberately abstract, since Laura's questions to Elisa that aim for tangible answers that don't matter (i.e. pressing her how or why she knew this creature existed before it appeared) are deliberately evaded in favor of the broader concerns for preserving the life, for seeking the potential resources that can aid and contribute to harmonic bonds rather than explain and satisfy narcissistic, introverted drives - but I'm interested in interpretations
3. Did the flower-eating prompt Laura to behave erratically and irresponsibly (i.e. the earlier accounts of not paying her bills)? Or is that itself a red herring guiding us as viewers to look for a tangible reason where it doesn't exist (i.e. 'Oh, she ate mysterious flowers that gave her amnesia and then she left, so that must've also caused all the third-hand accounts we heard earlier). That part of the narrative is elided for a reason I think, and it could be similar to how dissonant perspectives produce different rigid narratives... the boss was appalled that Laura didn't pay for her stuff, was disorganized, didn't leave a present, etc. but maybe Laura was focusing on her mission to help Elisa and the flowers had some ill effects on memory, etc? It hardly matters, just noting that it's not malicious or that it doesn't signify insanity is what's important.
therewillbeblus wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:42 pmA few questions I had while watching, though like my questions during La Flor, I'm certain that most of these have no explicit answer:
SpoilerShow1. What did the repeat words mean in the goodbye note ("Farewell, Farewell, I'm Leaving, I'm Leaving")- I think I recognized them as the song lyrics Ezekiel listens to over and over, but are they also referencing the letters or something else?
2. When Laura finally sees the creature's habitat, she says, “When I went into the room, I realized what we'd been working for all that time” but there isn't anything there to signify a higher calling. Does this broadly mean to preserve a life, or in the spirit of discovery since it's a new organism.. or simply that in seeing how much work was put into this habitat, the meaningfulness inherent in that effort alone qualifies its importance?
SpoilerShow
1. The note is explicitly referencing the conversation Ezekiel and Laura have about Paulo's insistence in the letters that Carmen's words are "the words of a little girl who repeats mechanically." They brainstorm what possible words she could have said and settle on "Adiós, adiós, me voy, me voy." It's the last conversation they have before the chapter with the same name (IV), though there is a brief scene in between where they're singing in the car.
2. I'm fairly certain this scene is simply meant to show that Elisa and Romina are not crazy or lying—that they really are serious scientists with a real project and a real creature—while also preserving the mystery of the creature's appearance. It's enough to solidify Laura's faith, and ours, while offering up still another teasing invitation to dig deeper. It's also sort of a flip on the
2. I'm fairly certain this scene is simply meant to show that Elisa and Romina are not crazy or lying—that they really are serious scientists with a real project and a real creature—while also preserving the mystery of the creature's appearance. It's enough to solidify Laura's faith, and ours, while offering up still another teasing invitation to dig deeper. It's also sort of a flip on the
Spoiler for Extraordinary Stories (2008)Show
lion episode in Extraordinary Stories, replacing the image of an aggressive, masculine predator with something nurturing, womb-like.
Despite the profusion of mysteries, I never felt the frisson of narrative that Llinás' films regularly deliver. Unlike Llinás, Citarella is not interested in omniscient third-person narration, which changes the feel of her film rather significantly (it's one of main reasons why I think the comparisons to La Flor are overblown). It completely alters the nature of performance, for example (narration allows Llinás to do all sorts of things with his actresses' iconography), and it makes Trenque much more narratively and dramatically straightforward (relative of course) and grounded. When Trenque shifts generic gears, it seems to shed what came before, almost like a molting process; rather than have a cumulative effect, the old stories seem to just disappear into the ether. The result is a film that has an odd relationship with its hefty runtime.
A minor quibble regarding the final sequence:
SpoilerShow
I'm not really sure why the film telegraphs Laura's final disappearance minutes before it happens with the magician performing card tricks in the tavern. This isn't really a problem per se, just something I found puzzling (and certainly not as satisfying as the aforementioned delayed payoffs Llinás plays with), though I suppose it did undercut the sense of transcendence Citarella seems to be aiming for.
- therewillbeblus
- Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm
Re: The Films of 2022
I don’t disagree with any of your impressions - it’s a film with completely different aims and operations than La Flor, but that’s why I ultimately felt the film was a sincerely-calculated tease (the tinkering with audience expectations of mystery and narrative is broadly similar to Llinas’ film, but to very different ends) that acts as-if it’s going to be about something sprawling until it’s about that surrender to letting go of that sprawling thing. I already wrote in-depth thoughts in the film’s dedicated thread, but this film’s end gave me a similar feeling to L’avventura - in that, structurally, Antonioni seems to intentionally establish an enthralling mystery and acute emotional experience of involvement with his first hour, only to unravel into a film that reflexively matches the detached energy of its participants, including Vitti, who is troubled by her acclimation to such a banal state. This film absolutely has that “molten” rather than “cumulative” effect you mention, but to service that revelation and practice of subtracting the noise, crumbling the stressors we impose on ourselves and that are imposed upon us, to find meaning in the ‘now’, alone, to the point where that necessitates being off screen entirely. I appreciated the thematic structural joke even if it was anticlimactic next to La Flor, but that seemed intentional. This is a film that does not rely on its existence to ‘work’, but can benefit from comparisons with Llinas’ film in order to demonstrate an opposite kind of empowering ethos as a conclusion, using similar literary influences in its bodydiamonds wrote: ↑Fri May 12, 2023 3:03 pmDespite the profusion of mysteries, I never felt the frisson of narrative that Llinás' films regularly deliver. Unlike Llinás, Citarella is not interested in omniscient third-person narration, which changes the feel of her film rather significantly (it's one of main reasons why I think the comparisons to La Flor are overblown). It completely alters the nature of performance, for example (narration allows Llinás to do all sorts of things with his actresses' iconography), and it makes Trenque much more narratively and dramatically straightforward (relative of course) and grounded. When Trenque shifts generic gears, it seems to shed what came before, almost like a molting process; rather than have a cumulative effect, the old stories seem to just disappear into the ether. The result is a film that has an odd relationship with its hefty runtime.
- diamonds
- Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2016 2:35 pm
Re: Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella, 2022)
For those who want more Trenque Lauquen, Film Fest Gent recently commissioned a series of collaborations between composers and filmmakers where the composer would first create a piece of score which the filmmaker would then use in a short film. Laura Citarella was paired with Eiko Ishibashi (who composed the wonderful Drive My Car score), and the resulting short is a meta companion piece to Trenque Lauquen that can be watched here.
(The rest of the shorts are collected here.)
(The rest of the shorts are collected here.)
- Finch
- Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
- Location: Edinburgh, UK
62 Trenque Lauquen
Trenque Lauquen (LE)
A woman vanishes. Two men take to the road in search of her: they both love her. Why did she leave? This sudden escape becomes the hidden core of a number of fictions that delicately weave together: the secret of the heart of another woman, lost as well, many years ago; the secret of the life of a village in the countryside, governed by a supernatural incident that nobody seems to perceive; the secret of the plains, which never ceases to spread and devour everything. An astonishing epic of two feature-length films six years in the making, Trenque Lauquen’s playful mystery and approach to genre has been compared to Twin Peaks and The Endless. Radiance is proud to present one of the most revered works of the year, from Argentine auteur Laura Citarella and the El Pampero Cine collective.
LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES
High-Definition digital transfer
5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
Interview with director Laura Citarella
Interview with film critic David Jenkins
Trenque Laquen - A short film by Laura Citarella
Gallery of behind-the-scenes images
Newly improved English subtitle translation
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Caitlin Quinlan and Jake Cole
Limited edition of 2000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
2-discs. Extras subject to change
Cert: 12
Format: Blu-ray
Region: ABC
RAD062BDLE
EAN: 5060974681181
Release date: 27/05/24
Press:
★★★★★ With hints of a Latin American Twin Peaks or X-Files, Trenque Lauquen plucks the bizarre out of the everyday, to laid-back but altogether magical effect. - Jonathan Romney, Financial Times
★★★★★ “One of 2023’s most astonishing films” - David Jenkins, Little White Lies
★★★★★ “There are similarities with the mumblecore science fiction of Shane Carruth’s Upstream Colour and The Endless, but Trenque Lauquen daringly stakes out its own spooky terrain.” - Tara Brady, Irish Times
- foggy eyes
- Joined: Fri Sep 01, 2006 9:58 am
- Location: UK
Re: 62 Trenque Lauquen
Really pleased to see this one get a release - its UK theatrical run (itself a surprise) was very limited, and it's nice to have the option of a Blu-ray so soon, rather than the presumably more-compressed web version. Will buy sight unseen!
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: 62 Trenque Lauquen
Cinema Guild’s announced their Blu will be coming out in April, for those region locked or over eager
- therewillbeblus
- Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm
- senseabove
- Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:07 am
Re: 62 Trenque Lauquen
I haven't seen any official announcement of the disc by CG themselves yet, so take this with a grain of salt, but if the Amazon listing is correct, the CG release will be one disc, while the Radiance will be two.domino harvey wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 9:43 amCinema Guild’s announced their Blu will be coming out in April, for those region locked or over eager
- senseabove
- Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:07 am
Re: 62 Trenque Lauquen
Good news: the Amazon listing was wrong. The release will be 2 discs. And it will warrant double dipping with unique supplements:
- The Poets Visit Juana Bignozzi a film by by Laura Citarella, Mercedes Halfon (2019, 90 mins)
- Eiko Ishibashi x Laura Citarella (2023, 11 min), a short film commissioned by Film Fest Gent as part of their 2x25 project
- Q&A with Laura Citarella from the New York Film Festival
- Booklet an essay by Marcos Uzal, Chief editor, Cahiers du Cinéma
- dadaistnun
- Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:31 am
Re: 62 Trenque Lauquen
Very cool, especially the inclusion of The Poets Visit Juana Bignozzi which based on the Letterboxd description sounds like a great pairing with the main feature:
A poet dies and another one, younger, feels an obligation to promote her work. She is joined by a team of women filmmakers. The film begins with this unusual triangle but, interestingly, it grows into something more complex and subtle than a traditional research project.
- ryannichols7
- Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2012 2:26 pm
Re: 62 Trenque Lauquen
really glad CG went with no overlap, makes it really compelling to pick up both. I feel like they knew that a lot of people were going to go with the Radiance edition, when really both labels are certainly worth supporting. maybe with this much interest, they will be more inclined to release more movies from this group..
- Finch
- Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
- Location: Edinburgh, UK
Re: 62 Trenque Lauquen
.Our edition of Laura Citarella's masterpiece arrives on a 2-disc limited edition soon and we are pleased to update the specs for the release. Trenque Lauquen now includes interviews with Citarella, actor and co-screenwriter Laura Paredes, actor Ezequiel Pierri, critic David Jenkins, a short film, two galleries annotated by the director and a booklet with new writing by actor Rafael Spregulburd and critics Caitlin Quinlan and Jake Cole