Critic Reviews

The pleasure lies in the telling — the invention of fictions, the performance of emotions — rather than in the details of plot. Once you lose yourself in the thickets of “Trenque Lauquen,” you won’t want to be found.

With the verve of a master classical storyteller, Citarella stages the unfolding of this eccentric mystery while processing the dizzying flow of information with a grace and precision that will have you hanging on every frame.

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.

Throughout the film, Laura Citarella emphasizes the liberating quality of following the rabbit hole as deep as it goes.

Long movies are not necessarily good or even ambitious; Trenque Lauquen is both. Notwithstanding a few minutes that could be shed here and there, everything from its sweet, intriguing Part I, the strategically placed and electrifying title sequence, and deliciously ominous Part II feel purposeful, organic.

Lengthy it may be, but this is light-of-touch fare, provocative and satisfyingly enigmatic, and though it feels like a four-hour MacGuffin, it remains an accomplished, literary and self-referential exercise in narrative deferral.

Argentinian director Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen is an enigmatic, semi-absurdist puzzle that defies the allure of narrative solution in favour of the liberation of loose ends.