Trenque Lauquen

Like the most beguiling mystery narratives, Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen is ostensibly a ghost story. Even before an inflexion of the Lynchian supernatural is introduced to the four-hour two-parter, the story is dominated by characters who are either missing or dead, driven by a deft, wispy tone.

We are flung into the central mystery as it is already underway, with Laura Paredes’ fictional namesake, a biologist who had recently undertaken research into historically consequential women for her regular slot on a local radio show, missing from the film’s titular town in the Argentinian Buenos Aires district. We meet two men, Ezequiel (Ezequiel Pierri) and Rafael (Rafael Spregelburd), Laura’s partner, in an investigative pursuit of the woman with whom they are both practically and emotionally involved to varying degrees. Ezequiel harbours the secret of a labyrinthine investigation of his own from Rafael, which saw him trailing the district with Laura, piecing together a dramatic love story hidden in secret romantic correspondence scattered within books, discovered by Laura during her research. A tentative romance blossoms between the two, which silently lingers in Ezequiel and Rafael’s conversations (some terrific eye acting on the part of Pierri reveals much of his character’s truth).

The film’s score guides us through the subtle genre shifts, which crop up from time to time, from mischievous, plucky strings of espionage to a theremin motif, which, with slightly less subtlety, points us towards the ghosts who populate the town of Trenque Lauquen. Citarella’s puzzle, therefore, navigates mysteries within mysteries, investigations within investigations, and layered parallel themes that become increasingly knotty and intangible but are consistently intriguing and unsettling.

Matthew McMillan

Trenque Lauquen is released in select cinemas on 8^th December 2023.

Watch the trailer for Trenque Lauquen here: