Landmarks review Lucrecia Martel's beautiful account of an Indigenous murder case

A murder trial centers on the killing of Javier Chocobar, an unarmed member of the Indigenous Chuchagasta people in Tucuman, northwest Argentina. Chocobar and other Chuchagasta members confront men claiming rights to mine land for resources, while former police officers carry handguns. Shaky, grainy footage captured by perpetrators is integrated with drone footage, linking lived violence to aerial views of terrain. Landmarks emphasizes land and terrain as active forces affecting daily life, and it foregrounds tensions between Indigenous people and descendants of colonists. The law and the church appear as weighty institutions influencing everyday people, while close attention to faces and slow pacing shapes an oneiric viewing experience.

"The case at the heart of the story revolves around the shooting of 68-year-old Javier Chocobar a member of the Indigenous Chuchagasta people in northwest Argentina's Tucuman province. The unarmed Chocobar was murdered in a messy scuffle when he and other Chuchagasta members confronted a trio of men, one of whom claimed to have the rights to mine the land for resources. (The other two were former police officers who just happened to have three handguns on them.)"

"Like Martel's fictional features, Landmarks unfolds in stately fashion, and features the sort of editing that lingers on the face of a speaker holding forth, or follows a cleaner polishing furniture and a clerk distributing dainty cups of coffee to the authorities as the arguments drag on. Martel explores the more poetic side of drone technology, giving the viewer a very clear understanding of the lay of the land while also creating oneiric, disorienting sequences in which we see goats and people ambling along mountain paths upside down, creating what looks like abstract landscapes in tonal shades of green."

"The attack was partly filmed by the perpetrators; although the actual shooting happens off camera, Martel integrates the footage into her film, the shaky, grainy textures feeling as if of a piece with the soaring views of the drone footage. But Martel's concerns are, obviously, not just about aesthetics. People are at the core of the story, and we learn a lot about Chocobar, his wife, his family and the Chucha"

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