LANDMARKS (aka NUESTRA TIERRA) (2025) NYFF 2025

 

Lucrecia Martel’s latest is a wildly uneven tale. Nominally the story of a battle over indigenous lands in Argentina that resulted in a murder.

The film tells the story of the Chuchagasta community whose existence was shattered by the death of one of their number almost a decade before when three men, one of who claimed the land, got into a scuffle with them and shots were fired. The film documents the community in the wake of the trial and live in the community.

I would like to say that the reason that the film doesn’t work as well as it does is that it pales in comparison to the numerous films about indigenous land rights that have been coming out of South and Central America, but the truth is the film is badly put together. The film was assembled as if the audience was as knowledgeable about events as the filmmakers, and as a result we are lost early.

The film begins with the trial. While it would have been fine had the film had made some effort to give us a context for what we are seeing, the film does not. The film simply throws us in, and lets us thrash about for a bit as we have to piece together even the basics of the story. The film then intercuts trial footage with life in the community where we get a sense of the person who was killed and what his life was  like.

While the portrait of the community is actually some of the best I have run across in the dozen or so similar films ffrom the last couple of years, the presentation is such that we remain outside the story because nothing is integrated. We don't get a sense of who most of the faces are. While the trial stuff is interesting, there is no effort to put it into context for anyone who isn’t familiar with the case or Argentine criminal proceedings. Much of it, say the confrontation in the courtroom,  seems alien to those of us not from the country.

And as lovely as the images from the drones are, there is simply too much. I know Martel says its there so that we remember the beauty of the land, and it is beautiful, but there is so much of it  and worst of all the film stops dead each time it appears.

While the film isn’t bad, it really should have a different presentation for maximum effect, especially since there are other films out there telling similar films more concisely.