KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

PennyLane This film meant a leap in Lucrecia Martel's career but also a blizzard of fresh air for Argentine cinema, which had become stiff and too ideological during the '90s. It has an interesting script, that keeps you absorbed by the tense climate and insinuated secrets at the home (maybe the main element of the movie), without great dramatic actions. However the major virtue of this film is in acting, sound and cinematography. The diverse and witty cast offers outstanding performances. The sound design is a solid example of what cinema can achieve through sound. While cinematography perfectly shapes the image according to each dramatic situation. In addition, the underlying themes, such as social differences and intrafamily secrets, are approached with admirable subtlety and depth.

gavin6942 The story of Mecha (Graciela Borges), a middle-aged woman in her 50s who has several teenagers. Her husband Gregorio (Martín Adjemián) wants to remain looking young, and both of them have to deal with their gloomy Amerindian servants, whom Mecha accuses of theft and laziness.Stephen Holden wrote, "The steamy ambiance in which the characters fester is a metaphor for creeping social decay...La Ciénaga perspires from the screen, it creates a vision of social malaise that feels paradoxically familiar and new." The best part is early on, where the clinking of glasses makes everything else soundless. What is being said about these people who do nothing all day but drink and lounge around a pool far too filthy to swim in?

Camoo Martel was a director previously unknown to me, and finding this film is one of life's wonderful little discoveries. Cienaga "The Swamp" buzzes with life and a kind of vibrancy that we don't get to see very often, especially not from Hollywood films which almost pride themselves in their sterility. Dirt, grime, sweat, rain, blood and tears cake every scene, and characters float in and out of the foggy Argentinian landscapes like lost animals. It recalls Bunuel's Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, where the characters are sometimes found walking the nameless road to nowhere - with a feeling that in this strange zone of unhappiness they are all trapped and unable to leave its perimeters. Terrific on every level.

jasonhirthler-741-314619 Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel wrote and directed this impressively rich and atmospheric look at moral dissipation among Argentina's upper classes. Set in northwestern Argentina, on a dilapidated country estate, the movie chronicles the quotidian malaise of an Argentine family, their cousins, servants, and the nearby town.Lushly and patiently filmed, the story follows the elder adults as they drink themselves into a stupor alongside their decrepit pool while their children cavort through the gloomy rooms of the country manor, killing off the idle hours of their summer holiday. Ignored by their parents, who are anxious to drown their own withered and broken relationships in alcohol, the children drive without licenses, race through the forest with shotguns, drink and dance at town parties.Martel's effortless style captures the aimlessness of their lives and casts an especially harsh light on the conflicted relationship between a small moneyed population with European ancestry and the indigent servant class of indigenous locals. The movie's languorous pace beautifully matches the hot and muggy atmosphere that lays like a blanket over the estate and its bored inhabitants...