Trenque Lauquen

(Literally ‘Round Lake’ – a town near Buenos Aires.)

An Argentinian film in two parts, totalling over four hours. Quiet, mysterious, and disconcerting: I often felt, particularly in Part I, as I did when watching Tarkovsky’s Stalker, or (less directly) reading something by W.G. Sebald. Part II, with the arrival in the town lake of a strange being – child or beast – is a little more like Arrival or Annihilation, though its theremin soundtrack reminded me of Asteroid City.

I guess in short it’s a long film where nothing happens, but that’s not to say that things don’t threaten to happen. There are people interacting, forming relationships, and conventional enough plotlines which emerge and develop, but which then tend to peter out and morph into others. If there’s anything deliberate in this story (which took six years to produce) it’s a wilful refusal to complete narrative. And it works.

The End We Start From

This film, on the other hand, simply reeks of story arc: in brief, a couple have a baby, are separated by a climate emergency, and finally reunited.

Two things make it great: Jodie Comer’s performance, and the whole what-Britain-might-be-like-in-such-a-crisis mise-en-scène, with dire news reports, the army running refugee camps, and ordinary citizens trampling each other to death to get food parcels. And Gina McKee.

Jodie finally gets to a commune on a Scottish island, seemingly led by Gina. Then she has a swim in the sea, shouts a bit, and decides to go back to the mainland because she doesn’t want her child to grow up knowing her mother had run away (or similar). Me and my mate thought this volta was not done very plausibly, but the other who tempered our negative view of Priscilla in similar vein persuaded me it was OK.

How they are related

(Other than in their being opposites in adherence to plot norms.)

Two women protagonists showing grit and perseverance in unfamiliar and dangerous circumstances. Both women determinedly pursue their stories, and disappear: Laura on purpose from her known world, Jodie’s character by circumstance, hiding on the island. The difference is the narratological one: Jodie comes back, Laura’s plot path just sort of fades out, gets lost in the marshes.