Margot Benacerraf, the award-winning Venezuelan documentary filmmaker, has died at the age of 97

Margot Benacerraf, a critically acclaimed Venezuelan documentary filmmaker whose hypnotic “Araya,” a visual poem chronicling the daily lives of salt workers on an austere peninsula on her country's coast, shared the critics' prize at the Cannes Film Festival of 1959, died Wednesday. in Caracas. She was 97 years old.

His death was announced by the country's Minister of Culture.

Acclaimed as a leading figure in Latin American cinema, Benacerraf founded Venezuela's national film library and in 2018 was awarded the Order of Francisco de Miranda, honoring exceptional merits in the sciences and humanities, by the country's president, Nicolás Maduro.

But while Ms. Benacerraf was celebrated, she was not prolific. She made only two films in her career: “Reverón” (1952), a 23-minute documentary short about the last solitary years of Venezuelan artist Armando Reverón, and “Araya”, his only feature film.

Influenced by the magical realism of novelists such as Gabriel García Márquez and Alejo Carpentier, Benacerraf captured, in 90 minutes, the sweat and canvas of workers among the towering salt pyramids on the centuries-old mining terrain of the Araya Peninsula. “Araya” shared the International Federation of Film Critics Award at Cannes in 1959 with Alain Resnais' landmark New Wave film, “Hiroshima Mon Amour.”

In 2019, New Yorker film critic Richard Brody called “Araya” a “majestic documentary portrait” of salt producers and their families. “Benacerraf's grand style,” he wrote, “captures the drama of subsistence in the face of nature,” adding that “the overwhelming beauty of the wide spaces contrasts with the laborious trek of workers through them.”

When a restored version of the film, which had been little seen for decades, was released on its fiftieth anniversary in 2009, and was hailed as a lost classic. “‘Araya’ is at once a revealing study of a truly unique way of life and also a powerful meditation on the inextricable links between society and place,” said celebrated documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple. Director Steven Soderbergh called it “a gift to filmmakers.”

Its languid pace and meditative air were not for everyone. In a 2009 assessment, critic Mike Hale of The New York Times praised the film's “Buñuelian austerity” and “breathtaking” visuals, but warned viewers: “Don't be surprised if the rhythms you feel most strongly are those circadian”. .”

Mrs. Benacerraf was born on Aug. 14, 1926, in Caracas to Fortunato Benacerraf, a manager of a family trading company, and Sete (Coriat) Benacerraf.

Ms. Benacerraf studied philosophy and literature at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas before turning to film. She trained in cinematography at the influential Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Paris, where the likes of Resnais, Louis Malle and Costa-Gavras also graced their art.

As an aspiring filmmaker in early 1950s Venezuela, he found his prospects limited, and not just because of gender barriers.

“I can not say it be a woman it made my job difficult,” he said in a 2009 interview with the film website Ioncinema. “I suffered from the general conditions of a country where it was very difficult to make films. In Venezuela at that time the profession of cinema was practically unknown”.

He had never made any kind of film when he decided to document the hermetic lifestyle of Reverón, a famous Latin American painter and sculptor, who at that time was “a trembling face surrounded by mirrors and knick-knacks,” The Art Newspaper noted in 2011. “The scenes of Reverón's life in his primitive home are haunting and disturbing,” the article continued, “giving no suggestion that he is an artist whose work can today regularly fetch six-figure sums at auction.”

“Reverón” drew attention to Benacerraf after screenings at film festivals in Cannes, Berlin and elsewhere. The success gave impetus to his next project, which was originally intended to be a triptych of short films about the daily lives of ordinary Venezuelans.

While scouting possible locations, she was struck by a magazine article that showcased Araya's “beautiful strangeness,” Ms. Benacerraf said in a 1992 interview published by The Journal of Film & Video.

Despite the international acclaim it received upon distribution, “Araya” was not released in Venezuelan theaters for 18 years because, he later said, distributors initially thought it was “too highbrow” for domestic audiences.

He eventually turned his attention to promoting film appreciation and filmmaking in his country. In 1966 he founded the national film library, on the model of the sacred Cinémathèque Française in Paris.

Information about his survivors was not immediately available.

Although she would never live again, Benacerraf remained proud of her signature film well into her final years, not only for its aesthetic beauty, but also for its depiction of the human condition.

“What attracted me most to Araya,” he said in the 1992 interview, “was not its austere, unforgiving beauty, but the dignity of its inhabitants.”

“In the midst of that desolate and hostile place,” he continued, “they managed to transform the very elements that made their existence so difficult into their true means of survival.”