"La Cienaga" (The Swamp) spends its 1:45 run examining the trivial daily activities of two families spanning three generation as they vacation in the sweaty climes of a run down Argentinian resort. There's no story arc in this film which ends much as it begins with bored family members who seem as uneasy with each other as they are with the humidity and temperature while they do the most mundane things. "La Cienaga" is so flat, in fact, that there's hardly a reason to recommend it save the fact that is so real and so much spot on with writer/director Martel's vision of bourgeois discomfort that it compels the viewer to watch vicariously and voyeuristically eking out moments of resonance. Not for the average film goer, this flick will work bests for foreign film buffs into plaintive studies of daily life. (B)
