Writer/director Lucrecia Martel walks in familiar territory for many women, who as adolescent girls have experienced sexual advances from older men. What is unfamiliar is the unusual twist in her tale, which strays from the stories most women tell. For in Martel's second film La Niña Santa ("The Holy Girl"), it is the child who becomes the predator, not the man.Set amid the decadent decay of a once elegant spa in Argentina, the story follows hotel co-owner Helen, (Mercedes Morán), a lonely divorcee who sparks the interest of the well-respected Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso), during a medical convention. When Jano takes an unhealthy interest in Helen's religious teenage daughter Amalia (Maria Alché), groping her in a crowded street, he stirs sexual feelings in her, which become muddled with her spiritual convictions. Confiding the incident to her friend Josefine (Julieta Zylberberg), Amalia now believes it is her "mission from God" to save Jano from his sins, and begins to stalk him, touching his hand on a crowded elevator, and allowing him to continue his advances. His struggle and vulnerability is painfully clear at every opportunity she provides. Meanwhile Josefine, caught in a compromising situation in bed with her cousin, reveals Amalia's secret to remove focus from her own indiscretion.
With Jano's fall immanent, the final scene of the film leaves us hanging: key plot points are unresolved, character arcs are unfinished, and the climax of the film is unsatisfying.
The film is stylish, but often too fast to follow, with its quick and busy eves-dropped conversations, and fragmented scenes. Ultimately, the title character Amalia does not win our sympathies, for when placed against Belloso's brilliantly terrified Jano, she seems more seductress than saint.
While the characters may be disquieting, and the story development unconventional, the thematic symbolism of the film is quite powerful. The dreary peeling paint and corruption of the setting effectively seems to eke into the characters of the two girls, and even erode their religious studies. Overall La Niña Santa is a well-acted but dark coming of age film in which religious fervor is overshadowed by budding sexuality. If you don't mind style and subtlety over conventional filmmaking, you will enjoy this film. B
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