The Holy Girl

Okay, this one stumps me. A. O. Scott of the NYTimes, and others, put it on their Top Ten for 2005. The reviews were mostly reverential, but I did not get the appeal at all. When the disk came from Netflix two months ago, I watched twenty minutes before conking out. With that “no late fees” appeal, I kept it around till I could do my duty. Well, it’s different, that’s for sure. Set in a hotel in provincial Argentina, where a doctors’ conference is being held, and where teenage girls are coming to terms with their sanctity and sexuality, and sometimes getting the two mixed up. The mother of one girl owns the hotel with her brother, and she vies with her daughter in a crush on one doctor. But you really have to work to figure out even this much, the storytelling and even the framing of shots are oblique to the point of obscurity. Some will tell you that Lucrecia Martel is a filmmaker to watch, but you’re on your own with this one. I didn’t hate watching it, but I couldn’t figure it out. (2004, dvd, n.) *NR* (MC-75, RT-75.)