"The unpredictable mystery being called ‘best film of 2023'" The Independent

Mysteries hide inside other mysteries like Russian dolls in Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen. In this sprawling epic, set over two parts, twelve chapters, and 260 minutes, an Argentinian city west of Buenos Aires plays home to the labyrinthine story of a missing woman whose disappearance provokes far more questions than answers.

What begins as a search for Laura (Laura Paredes) unfolds into varied, interconnected stories about, among other things, the secrets of lovers hidden inside library books, an enigmatic lake creature, the history of the land and its ecology, and one woman’s empowered self-discovery.

Confusion is part of the equation here; the winding roads and tales are designed for meandering, for enjoying the discovery of riddles and puzzles, and for letting go of the need to make sense of it all.

The film is also a sequel, of sorts. One of Citarella’s previous films, Ostende, follows the same Laura character (played by Paredes) as she attempts to uncover the mysteries of the guests at a hotel. As such, Citarella’s films and the wider work of El Pampero Cine suggest that remarkable things—the freedom and joy of experimentation, repetition, and collective creativity—are possible in filmmaking today.

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