Apr 24
International Film Forum: Trenque Lauquen, Part 1
Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella, 2022, Argentina/Germany, 240 min. total [120 min. each part])
Q&A with director Laura Citarella and actor Ezequiel Pierri after the Tuesday evening screening
“In her dazzling and enormously pleasurable new opus, Laura Citarella takes viewers on a limitless, mercurial journey through stories nested within stories set in and around the Argentinean city of Trenque Lauquen (“Round Lake”) and centered on the strange disappearance of a local academic named Laura (Laura Paredes). Through initial inquiries by two colleagues—older boyfriend Rafael and a driver named Ezequiel with whom Laura had grown secretly close—we learn about her recent discoveries, including a new, unclassified species of flower and a series of old love letters hidden at the local library, which may help track her down. Yet as flashbacks and anecdotes pile up, we—and the film’s intrepid investigators—begin to realize that this intricately structured tale is larger and stranger than we could have imagined. Citarella, a producer of the equally remarkable shape-shifting epic La Flor, has confidently crafted a series of interlocked romantic, biological, and ecological mysteries that create parallels between past lives and present dangers, invoke the rapture of obsessive pursuit, and salute the human need to find personal freedom and happiness. Trenque Lauquen is told in 12 chapters spread across two feature films.” (New York Film Festival)
Co-sponsored by the Elizabeth Nason Distinguished Women Visitors Fund, the Spanish Department, and the Latin American Studies Program
