Algunas chicas

Caught a theatrical screening of "Algunas Chicas" at NYC's Anthology Film Archives' Bridges in Argentinian Cinema Retrospective. Good intentions notwithstanding, this movie is the very definition of a trying to have it both ways. Loosely based on Cesare Pavese's "Tra Donne Sole" novella but set in an Argentinian picturesque countryside province, the movie appears at first to be about Buenos Aires surgeon Celina (Celina Rainero) coming back to her hometown to visit childhood friends. Then she gets involved with Paula (Agostina López), a girl who may or may not have attempted/succeeded in committing suicide. Two more girlfriends, Nené (Ailín Salas) and Maria (Agustina Muñoz) join in. As the foursome talk, fool around and kill time the distinction between past and present, id run amok and fantasy, dreams and reality blur into a pastiche of obtuse storytelling and scenes that become each individual viewers' Rorschach test about what they mean, if anything.

Take the annoying donkey braying after one of the girls accidentally misses her target while target-shooting in the woods. Is it real or collectively imagined? Is it actually a donkey braying at all? And what's with Celina's window showing constantly rotating rear-projected imagery? Or the least-sexy threesome featuring attractive actors ever filmed? Is the cab driver telling the same morbid story to both Celina and her husband the devil? "Algunas Chicas" is staged in such a way as to suggest everyone succeeded in their suicide and their restless spirits are just hanging around this particular hacienda... or these are just moody chicks having a couple of bad days. Think Argentinian "Last Year at Marienbad" crossed with a did-they-or- didn't-they "Virgin Spring" knockoff, except moving so slowly as to make the fabric of time seem eternal.