The Argentinian summer of 2001 was pure heat and chaos. The century began with one of the country's most significant economic, political, and social crises, and the generation of director Laura Casabé (The Returned, Benavidez's Case) entered adulthood from a place of desolation. Her new film, The Virgin of the Quarry Lake, uses this imagery to imbue a story built around teenage female desire and a sinister yet everyday magical realism with darkness and violence.
What does it mean to you, at this point for Argentine filmmaking, to have made a movie that is gaining international interest, and that is also independent cinema?
It was really hard to make this movie at the time we shot it because it was during the government transition, and Argentina's film industry was going through a really tough time with films practically being canceled. For me, it's super exciting and meaningful that it's an independent film made entirely with public funds. There is no private capital, so we were able to enjoy a tremendous amount of freedom. I don't know if this film could be made in Argentina today; I seriously doubt it. So, the recognition of it having premiered at Sundance and now enjoying this international run is extremely exciting for me. I also think it is significant and important, especially because Argentina is currently experiencing a period where this type of filmmaking is being greatly disparaged. The Virgin of the Stone Quarry is based on two stories by Mariana Enriquez (“The Virgin of the Stone Quarry” and “The Cart”) from The Dangers of Smoking in Bed.
What is your personal connection to Enriquez's work, and where did the urge to work with her stories come from?
I'm a devoted Mariana Enriquez reader, and I've had a connection to literature that's almost as intense as my love of film and horror from a very young age. I read Mariana's stories as soon as they were published. And in her writing, I found a very unique voice that I felt represented me, and a way of telling stories and approaching the language of horror from a very local perspective, but also with a certain universal aspect. I think there was something in those stories that was speaking to me, to my generation, to my friends, to the world I had lived in, and to my way of viewing the world. A couple of years later, I decided to email Mariana and ask her if I could work with these two stories. This film is more of a transposition than an adaptation, and I think it's not just about trying to respect the work, but about conveying what happened to me and to Benjamin Naishtat, the screenwriter, when we read the stories. What we can contribute to that story and how it impacted us.
How did you decide to set it during the 2001 crisis, and what do you think this context brings to the stories? What was the process of developing such an organic setting like?
The idea that the film would take place during the 2001 crisis was there from the outset, because we initially thought that “The Cart” was a specific reference to the crisis. I also really wanted to make a coming-of-age film and tell the story of what the transition to adulthood was like for my generation. I'm the same age as Natalia. What I wanted was to tell a story of initiation, of starting adult life in a context of extreme violence and where there was a feeling that the future had been canceled. It was something that was in the air, but we weren't aware of it. As a horror movie freak, I thought this would be interesting to use as raw material for this genre. Using the imaginary and mythology of 2001 to transform it into a curse. This was clear from the beginning, and then it was a matter of seeing how we were going to translate it, how to make it a more everyday story and not what appeared in the news. What day-to-day life was like at that time from the point of view of a teenager who's in love and wants to have sex.
You mentioned that “The Cart” is a kind of allegory on the crisis, but how did the idea arise for the images in “The Cart” to be our disturbing introduction to this world?
I remember reading the story and being completely captivated by the opening scene of “The Cart”. So it was something that was always present, and then it was a matter of seeing how to make the storyline for “The Virgin of the Quarry Lake“ -the story we were most interested in exploring- come to life within the universe of “The Cart.” But that opening sequence was in all versions of the script, and from there it was a long journey of figuring out how to merge the stories. In the editing process, it was also a challenge to manage to make them coexist organically. We also decided to make the change of working only from Natalia's point of view and understand how what was happening out on the street — and in “The Cart” — was speaking to Natalia, was communicating something to her. But I almost want to say that if this film exists, it's because of that opening sequence from “The Cart.”
Both in your previous film, The Returned, and in The Virgin of the Quarry Lake, you have central female characters, but with very different dynamics. In this film, there's a confrontation, an antagonism. How did you work on the relationship between Natalia and Silvia to develop a confrontation that was organic and didn't fall into the clichés of woman-versus-woman?
It was pretty tricky to achieve that balance, because it was very clear to me that we couldn't fall into a Manichean, overly obvious, very teen-oriented place. Unfortunately, most films, even those about teenage girls, have been filmed by men. And the way to find the right tone for this was through personal experience, these forty years of being a woman and connecting with female friends. And also from a very concrete and rational exploration of what happens intuitively with the women I surround myself with. We were very aware that we didn't want to fall into a Manichean trap, that we wanted to show all the shades of gray in the way girls relate to each other, with their female friends and also with the women they compete with, the women they admire... And coming from this feminist wave, there was also a feeling of not wanting to sacralize female bonds, of not romanticizing them. Because I think there has been an idealization of female bonds.
And the idea that representing women “well” implies that they have to be good characters...
I kind of wanted to disrespect how the bonds between women had been portrayed. That's something that also comes from Enriquez's literature. Although her girls are different from the ones in the film, I do think it's one of the most interesting things she proposes: how one form of horror is how horrible we can be to each other. And I think that's speaking from a very honest place.
By Brunella Tedesco.
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