The Headless Woman (2008)

I watched this movie because it was required viewing for a Film Analysis class--the theme of the week was how sound and image can be synergistic in a movie, becoming bigger or more dramatic than the sum of their parts--and that definitely fits with this movie.  The opening scene is hard to follow because people are talking the way they normally do--all at once--so it was hard to follow just one thread of the conversation because there were several occurring all at the same time. 

This is no action movie.  In fact, there is remarkably little dialogue to go off.  Rain is a consistent theme throughout the movie, and that you can hear loud an clear.  People are a little trickier.  The movie takes place in a somewhat desolate Argentinian town.  The central character, Verónica (María Onetto), a middle-age woman who runs a dental clinic with her brother, is a big fish in a small pond.  Her house is small, but it is filled with servants.  The people around her afford her a bit of shelter from the real world.

The story revolves around Verónica’s brief meltdown after her involvement in a possible hit-and-run accident. In the movie’s opening shot, four boys with a dog cavort in a roadside canal along a nearly deserted rural highway as an approaching car is heard.  After that, Verónica barely speaks.  She is in an almost fugue state for quite some time, with people around her answering questions posed to her, seeming not to notice that she hasn't said a word herself and looks persistently bewildered.  When she does come around a bit, she finds that there is very little evidence of the accident--no dead bodies, no medical reports from her ER visit, no x-rays--we saw it happen, but did it really?

There are sexual liaisons that seemingly add little to the plot--Verónica has a fling with Juan Manuel (Daniel Genoud), a cousin of her husband, Marcos (César Bordón). A lesbian niece, recovering from hepatitis, is unrequitedly besotted with her.   What it comes down to is that while Verónica is not acting like herself at all, her family and servants continue her life around her without her.  By movie's end, she is starting to work again, even as she reamins functionally mute.  The end.