Even though the discovery of one's burgeoning sexuality is a common theme in cinema, "La niña santa" ("The Holy Girl" in English) still bears watching. Teenage girl Amalia has two experiences in a dilapidated hotel that will change her life forever: an exploration of her sexuality with her friend Josefina, and a microaggression from a doctor.The significance of Amalia's Catholic schooling was ambiguous. The movie makes clear that Amalia thinks that she has to save the doctor from this inappropriate behavior. What I couldn't quite figure out was whether the movie treated her Catholicism as a virtue or a problem. In the end, what's important is the focus on the contrast between sexual vulnerability and sexual power. Having seen this movie, I hope to see more movies by Lucrecia Martel.

Yesterday, in my lunch time, I saw this new-released DVD on sale in a store. I had no information about "La Niña Santa", but its cover had the symbols of participation in the Cannes, Toronto and New York Festivals, and four favorable reviews (from "Le Monde", "Premiere", Sergio Rizzo (unknown for me) from the "Folha de São Paulo" and "New York Times"). When I read the name of one of the producers, Pedro Almodóvar, and that this movie was awarded in the "Mostra International de Cinema de São Paulo", I unfortunately decided to buy it."La Niña Santa" is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The screenplay is terrible: the viewer can see that the story is in a Latin country (Argentina indeed), but the explanation is only found reading the cover of the DVD. It takes thirteen minutes to understand that the location is a hotel welcoming a conference of physicians and surgeons. The group of gossipy girls in a choir is never explained if they belong to a church or school. The amateurish framing recalled my son, when he was a baby boy and had some trouble to use the camcorder, cutting heads, shoulders, legs of feet in his footages; the same happens along the whole movie. Based on the foregoing remarks, the poor direction is simply terrible. Last but not the least, even the cast composed by ugly actors and actress is not attractive. My advice: although having a great lobby, do not waste your time and money in this crap. My vote is one.Title (Brazil): "A Menina Santa" ("The Saint Girl")

This is a difficult movie mainly because it attempts to reach for an elusive subject: the enormous power of women over men, in spite of their ostensibly inferior status.The story is so idiosyncratic that we have to believe it is drawn from the director's life, and it is told in an appropriately intense, hyper-naturalistic way.As the meaning of the film emerges, very slowly, like watching paint dry, we realise that one lapse into temptation by an elite surgeon could plunge him into public disgrace and destroy his family and his career. And yet, the object of his momentary lust, a 15 year-old, has no idea of his fate in the all-male medical masonry hanging in her grasp, while her mother flirts with him, equally unaware but for quite different reasons.The girl, Amalia, is receiving intensive Roman Catholic instruction, which is as peculiar and fanatical for Latin girls as any madrassah Islamic brainwashing is for boys. The instructor weeps while singing the canticles about Hell and Heaven, and impresses the girls that they will definitely have a religious vocation, and will recognise the signs. Amalia, however, has more belief in the work of her own fingers under the sheets.The superstitious cult fills the girls' heads with nonsense and Amalia seems to think at one point that she can console and even seduce her father figure. She may well be emotionally disturbed by the divorce of her parents, and the imminent birth of twins to her unknown stepmother.Her friend, meanwhile, is engaging in sordid anal copulation with her boyfriend, simply to keep him around, while believing she is retaining her virginity. That's the wicked work of religious morality.I'm not sure how much women like to see themselves depicted in this unglamorous light, so the picture may well not be a hit at the box office, where the purchasing decision is often theirs. Nor is the storytelling method consumer-friendly, showing no exteriors and building characters slowly and haphazardly.

"The Holy Girl (La Niña santa)" effectively captures the obsessive, all-consuming passions of adolescent girls, like an Argentinian "Thirteen" suffused by Catholicism instead of California pop culture.Young teens are shown exploring their faith as equally as their bodies and the new found power of their sexuality, as a religious instructor, Mía Maestro of TV's "Alias" protectively, and finally impatiently, tries to channel their avidity into becoming a nun.But one of the girls comes into contact with the panoply of the perfidy of adults in an intriguing situation, as part of the family of resident managers of a resort hotel. The film focuses on the week when a medical convention brings partying doctors into her and her mother's sights.Writer/director Lucrecia Martel adds an interesting element, recalling but much less brutally than "Blue Car" and "Fat Girl (a ma soeur)," when an older abuser crosses paths with the curious adolescent. Ironically, here he is a nondescript, middle-aged husband and father but he gets off on anonymous rubbing up in crowds (which is eerily accompanied by a street musician playing the spooky-sounding theremin), that she confuses for more direct attention into what she transfers as her religious "mission" (at least that's how it's translated).The parallel story with the flirtatious mother is less convincing, even with some sort of jealous motivation because her ex's young trophy wife is now pregnant and her boredom with some sort of ongoing, casual relationship she has with another hotel employee.The film ends on an oddly sympathetic note for the fetishist as his needed anonymity is gradually lost over the course of the week, with a negative view of the teenage girls as they manipulatively deflect adult notice from their experiments.The English subtitles are very awkwardly translated. Some of the English words have a disjointed connotation and are downright confusing.The cinematography is very lush and warm, reflecting the girls' overheated emotions.