Interview: Laura Citarella

"You can’t be afraid of things transforming."

Alonso Aguilar

El Pampero Cine’s standing as a cult faction within “international cinema” has a lot to do with how recognizable their films are from the off. No matter the setting, topic or name in the directing chair, there’s a tangible ethos of cinematic and narrative playfulness that’s shared within its roster of filmmakers. Nevertheless, having common foundations and a rotating set of crew and performers from project to project doesn’t mean all Pampero films feel or are made equal. Mariano Llinás’ megalomaniacal narrative structures, Alejo Moguillansky’s fascination with formal tensions within fiction, and Laura Citarella’s dissections of perspective and positionality (just to name the three most prolific Pampero directors) cohabit the same production umbrella, but branch out into their own unique preoccupations and understandings of how to engage with them cinematically.

In the case of Citarella, her 2011 breakthrough Ostende, a cryptic immersion into a woman’s voyeuristic forays, set the initial spark of what would eventually become the novelistic, nearly 4-and-a-half-hour Trenque Lauquen (2022), one of El Pampero Cine’s most ambitious undertakings alongside Mariano Llinás’ monolithic La Flor (2018). In it, Laura Paredes reprises her character from Ostende. Having disappeared, two of her former lovers embark on a road trip through rural Argentina, with their memories slowly giving way to her experiences of a far deeper mystery.

But how does the Pampero way of doing things allow for such deeply idiosyncratic projects? How does a filmmaker navigate such intricate fiction designs? What was the decision process behind the stealthy ways Trenque Lauquen subverts genre expectations? This conversation with Citarella aims to answer those questions.

Trenque Lauquen was recently screened at London’s Institute of Contemporary Art as part of the In Focus: El Pampero Cine.

CYZ: Trenque Lauquen had a long production process of around 5 years, and you’ve mentioned previously that it started out with a more linear narrative. How did you engage with the film’s ongoing mutation, both creatively and personally?

Laura Citarella: I think the key for articulating that mutation within the film is having a production system that allows you to go in and out of the movie constantly. You’re writing it, as you’re editing it, as you’re filming it, so you see the film through the logic of its own material, and use that to determine what works better. Through that process a more complex and rhizomatic structure appears, and forces us to reconsider the more linear approach we had on the original script. Right then, the film flips on itself, and is intersected by other characters’ points of view, instead of the protagonist, whose own point of view arrives later on. This allows you to start exploring the protagonist’s character, and add a layer of mystery, as you learn about her through other people’s perspective, objects around her that start appearing, etc. Expectation starts to build up, so when you finally reveal her point of view it’s more powerful. While looking at the material we had, we felt this structure made things feel more dangerous and puzzling.

You mentioned how at the start Laura’s perspective was at the forefront. How did that choral approach towards storytelling change the creative process during filming?

LC: There was always the tandem with Ezequiel and Rafa, who now appear at the start, but originally came into the story much later. There was a moment during editing that we hit a hard stop in the middle of it. Some personal processes, and some other El Pampero things, we filmed other movies, we premiered La Flor, and the pandemic also forced us to stop and think about things. It’s at that point that we thought it was interesting to bring those characters to the beginning of the story, and really establish that “starting point” for the whole narrative adventure. It was even closer to that “adventure” ethos that was the original intention. How does fiction work around women leaving, those who decide to disappear? And the adventure chapter was the first example that came to mind. So the process definitely helped getting back to the roots of the project, that initial impulse.

The Pampero model of production, where you produce and distribute each others’ films, seems fascinating. With producing each others’ films and dealing with their distribution, how does that horizontal type of filmmaking inform creative dialogue and collaboration?

LC: It’s a method where there isn’t any fear of working with others. We’ve been doing it like this for more than 20 years. The DoP, Agustín Mendilaharzu, also directed Clementina (2022) with Constanza Feldman, and is a playwright. We’re on set and he is the DoP, but he can have something to say about the script. Ezequiel is an actor in the film, but he isn' t a professional actor, and deals with production most of the time. Laura, the protagonist, is also the film’s co-screenwriter. So there’s a constant exchange and dialogue with people who are used to dealing with different roles, and that makes the workflow more collaborative than what the credit roles might imply. It becomes somewhat diffuse who does what, and it really doesn’t matter. I feel it’s closer to how a rock band functions. Everyone has a say on each other’s riffs and lyrics, and is open to hearing a fresh take on something they might’ve been fixated on for a long time.

With Ostende (2011), which is the previous part of the Trenque Lauquen saga, the whole team was at the premiere at BAFICI, and seeing it there we felt something was missing, so we decided to film another scene and add it afterwards. You can’t be afraid of things transforming. That’s essential for this collaborative approach to work.

It’s as if the works themselves are not static, which mirrors some aspects of Trenque Lauquen. The film constructs images, but also encourages the audience to create their own images through suggestion, almost like an oral history.

LC: To me that has a lot to do with literature. Perhaps not literature per se, but the literary experience as a reader, when you identify the relationship between words, not what these words mean or say, but what they evoke, and to me that’s just like images. Literature has to make a lot of effort to say without saying directly, which allows the reader to fill in and have an incident with what’s being evoked. In cinema that opportunity arises even more explicitly.

In fact, I believe that Trenque Lauquen has a very novelistic structure in a way where things appear between the lines, and the audience can have their own relationship with the material. It’s the kind of space where mysteries aren’t resolved, they just transform into something else. Their resolution is kind of irrelevant, what matters is what happens without the mystery's resolution. In the film they blend between each other and at some point you ask yourself “how did we get here?”. That awakening, or nebulous zone where one enters, and starts making connections within the film’s own logic. That was like the whole ethos of the film.