Keswick Film Club - The Headless Woman

Synopsis

This latest masterpiece by writer-director Lucrecia Martel (La Cienaga, The Holy Girl) features Maria Onetto playing Verónica, an elegant, middle-aged dentist, who, driving along a lonely road, hits something - a dog? - but later she gradually becomes more and more unhinged, in the belief that she may have killed a little boy. The suspense occasioned by her doubt and guilt, coupled with several superb acting performances, drives this thriller to its unsettling conclusion.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: ‘In the past decade, there have been three great films about guilt, denial and the return of the repressed: Mike Leigh's Vera Drake in 2004, Michael Haneke's Hidden in 2005 – and this is the third, The Headless Woman…It is a masterly, disturbing and deeply mysterious film about someone who strenuously conceals from herself the knowledge of her own guilt.’