Perturbed Genders in Lucrecia Martel

This chapter explores the exhibition of a baroque aesthetic in Lucrecia Martel's second feature film, La niña santa (The Holy Girl 2004). The author argues that in a cinematic world where visual aspects are prominent, Martel’s cinema uses sound to introduce a disturbance. Similarly to desire, sound exists as a constant in everyday life, not constrained to specific spaces or times. It rises and falls unpredictably, much like the reverberations of water. The film’s structure is built upon contrasts, or counterpoints, portraying doubles, parallels, symmetries, and oppositions in great detail. These contrasts are connected by glissandi effects, such as the slippery sounds of the theremin, representing the continual pulsation of desire across different bodies, spaces, and times. The film creates oppositions between elements that become intertwined as soon as they are introduced, ranging from intense veneration to scientific neutrality.