I only heard about the film Trenque Lauquen (2022) through Simon Miraudo reviewing it on Letterboxd. A four hour shaggy-dog mystery from Argentina might have passed me by, but it completely sounded like something that I’d like to seek out. Directed and co-written by Laura Citarella, this is a mystery that ventures off into different directions, complicating the initial search for a woman – Laura (Laura Paredes, who also co-wrote the movie) – who has gone missing of her own accord. It was a bit of a quest to find Trenque Lauquen, only stumbling across it through the streaming channel Mubi but in another country’s library through a VPN. Due to its length, I would watch it in stages, like reading chapters from a book, and could only imagine the experience of seeing it one four hour sitting, hopefully with an intermission.
When the movie begins outside a countryside petrol station, Trenque Lauquen initially presents itself as a bit serious. The early morning light with two men standing in a patch of dirt, chatting over take-away cups of coffee, a younger man Chicho (Ezequiel Pierri) whose car was borrowed by Laura and found abandoned, and the older Rafa (Rafael Spregelburd), an academic who is Laura’s partner and trying to find her. An academic herself, Laura worked through country towns like Trenque Lauquen, identifying plant types within the fields. The serious vibe of the movie starts to become broken, and my entrypoint to the movie was Pierri’s performance as Chicho, who seems initially quiet and reserved, and as the movie breaks itself up into chapters and we see a flashback of Chicho’s working relationship with Laura, driving her out to the fields in his truck, and becoming an embroiled in a mystery she discovers while researching in a library for a regular segment she has at a community radio station. The humour of the movie emerges through Chicho’s deadpan reaction to the conversations he has, particularly with Laura’s excitable discovery of hidden correspondence across library books. That there is a sweetness to Chicho which comes through in Pierri’s performance, and the growing love he feels for Laura when he collaborates and becomes sucked into this mystery was also something that grabbed me further.
And yet this is only one chapter and one part of a growing narrative that breaks off and doubles back with flashbacks and distractions. Comparable to the films I’ve seen of Jacques Rivette and his interest in acting, games and mysteries, I knew that Trenque Lauquen wouldn’t offer easy answers or clear solutions, and that part of its fun and wonder is in spiralling off into further adventures, and stepping into various sub-genres (noir, sci-fi, thriller).
What I found most surprising and delightful about Trenque Lauquen was how relatable it felt, even as a four-hour arthouse movie about irresolvable mysteries. I don’t know much about Argentina culture, and have never been to Trenque Lauquen, but the way it is filmed felt recognisable. Like somewhere down South. The places of investigation and rumination are commonplace. A bar, a library, a school, a community radio station, a lake within a town. Strange detours and occurrences are related through stories, people talking to someone at a bar, or a cafe, or in a radio station. Way out there, yet simultaneously down to earth.
Trenque Lauquen ambles and it pivots, and it’s loose and deadpan, content to follow new directions and allow ambiguities and readings in the physical and emotional journeys of its character, particularly Paredes as Laura. Even if she’s not necessarily located by the people looking for her, the film eventually locks in and moves from other people’s perspectives of her to her telling the story and finding a place without words. Mysteries become a means to depicting and connecting with human behaviour. People following whims and slowly being overtaken by a longing. A mystery without a solution, wanderings from different perspectives, yet overlapping. To keep driving, to keep walking, forever searching…
Recommended.
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