When I met Argentinian filmmaker Laura Casabé at Sundance Film Festival for our interview, she immediately gave me a hug. It was a great way to start our conversation. I felt seen by Laura’s film, and by her. It was great to have an interaction with a person, human to human, rather than just filmmaker to film journalist.
Her film is honest, raw, and terrifying, in a way. The vibe of the film had an emotionally prickly feel to it akin to the work of Joyce Carol Oates. Titled “The Virgin of the Quarry Lake,” Laura’s film is based on the Argentinian writer Mariana Enríquez’s and shares its title with one of them. It is beautifully filmed, and the sound design is amazing. The movie is set during the 2001 economic crisis in Argentina, and centers on a teenage girl, Natalia, whose crush is taken with an older woman named Silvia. While this is happening, Natalia is coming of age, discovering her sexuality, and dealing with the horrors around her in supernatural ways.
While watching your film, I kept being reminded of the work of another Argentinian filmmaker, Lucrecia Martel, who made the great “La Cienaga.” I was also getting major “Carrie” vibes with all of the blood.
Lucrecia Martel is one of my inspirations. I’m not kidding, her work was one of the references. And “Carrie.” It’s kind of like a fusion between the two. These are stories from the author, Mariana Enríquez, specifically two of them that I read, one of which was called “The Virgin of the Quarry Lake.” That is where the title came from. I am in love with her literature and her writing.
After I read her work, I wanted to try translating her writing to the screen. Her work is so emotional. I had so many strong feelings in response to her work. I feel so represented by her stories about adolescence and being a teenage girl. When I read it, I could see it and hear it. I wanted to realize the visuals and the sounds suggested in her material. I actually studied Lucretia’s work, particularly in the way she articulates the sound design. I studied the ways that she constructed these worlds. The sound world, for me, is so important.
During the pandemic, we got the rights to make Mariana’s work into a film. So I got the idea to tell this story about teenagers during the 2001 economic crisis in Argentina. That was something that I experienced as a teenager, and I was also the age of Natalia when it happened.
It was so interesting to make a coming-of-age story during that particular time. To me, Mariana Enriquez’ work is like horror literature, so I wanted to experiment with the horror genre in this film. We spoke with Benjamin Naishtat, who wrote the script, about shaping the film within this genre. This all occurred during the pandemic, and that is how this project came together.
How did you find Dolores Oliverio to play Natalia? She has such a magnetic presence on the screen.
In the short stories, you have the same group of girls, all three of whom are the same. But Benjamin and I decided that there should be a main character named from the three, and so we named her Natalia. It was a long casting process, and I wanted to work with young people who lived on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, which has an amazing actor and theater community. But I wanted to work with actors from where the stories took place. So we had a long casting process and we probably saw around seventy girls for the part of Natalia, when it should have been around fifteen. The interesting thing was that Dolores was one of the last ones to audition.
Wow. It’s good that you went through all seventy!
Another interesting thing about Dolores is that she is a professional dancer, not an actress. But she has this magnetic presence and is also very young. She was like a child when she came for the audition. What stood out to me about Dolores is that I love the sound of her voice. That was the first thing that struck me about her. When she auditioned for her scene, she was spectacular. She’s so good.
But she had no acting experience, so I worked with her on developing the role. We rehearsed for months with a coach. But she got it, and has a raw talent. She rehearsed with the rest of the cast too. As a dancer, she is so disciplined and precise. She knows how to stay in front of a camera, and is in total control of her body.
I know sound obviously was an important aspect of the film for you. Can you talk about your collaborators in the sound department?
I started to work on the sound design with the editor, Miguel Schverdfinger, who has actually worked with Lucrecia Martel on three of her films. So I went to Mexico to collaborate with him. When we worked together, we spoke a lot about sound design. We get great synergy with the sound, and we tried to see how we could go further and make this whole sound universe that belongs to this film. When he worked with Lucrecia, he had developed this great sound library. His assistance really added to the sound design of the film.
The use of blood is so interesting in this film, especially when it manifests as women’s periods. We really don’t see that often onscreen. I know only one director who does that, Jennifer Reeder, who makes horror films in America.
I think that we do have a powerful relationship with blood. And I don’t know why we don’t show these things onscreen, because it’s such a part of our daily reality. Most of us, as women, bleed. It’s part of our life, and it was important for me to show that in a real and honest way. I do not judge. These things happen.
We also used her bleeding to mirror the violence that was going on around her. We really made the blood shine, and used it in this flexible way that connected it to all the fantastical elements in the film. The blood connects to this witchiness that is part of Natalia’s character. I wanted to use blood in a really honest and raw way.
What do you hope people see in your film?
I’m new to the U.S. festival circuit. I’m used to being part of Latin or Spanish film festivals. I know how those audiences are going to react. Although the film has a lot of American film influences and references, like “Carrie,” “The Craft” and the work of David Lynch, I’m curious about how it’s going to translate. I’m hoping it will connect with audiences.
It definitely will because it has a lot of universal themes. I always feel that films are the glue that keeps us together.
Yes, and I hope we can talk about the ways we feel about the film in relation to both that time and our present moment, without romanticizing or even judging it. I just want to shine a light on human nature, and how we deal with these kind of things in our lives, such as anger. I hope we can be moved by Natalia and what happens to her without judging her. And I really just want people to have fun. I know it’s a raw movie, but . . .
I think people definitely will. It’s got that “mean girls” feel to it, too.
I relate to that, and I make references to all of those movies. I love them. I wanted to make it sexy too, and make it pop.
