El cazador

I kept getting distracted by the main characters huge uni-brow.

...but this is just boring without a reason, without a cause. It's a short film, fed into a movie. A story what can be exciting, but it's just made boring.

No, art is just not this...

It's too long. That has to be the first thing to say about the film, it's self indulgent. There are too many scenes where nothing or little happens. This would have been so much better as a film one hour and twenty minutes long. However, I watched right to the end which was inconclusive.

Ezekiel is on a mission to get laid. He gazes longingly at straight boys in the loo, at school, at sporting venues. When he finally meets Mano at a skate park it seems that his dream is realised. However, upon the arrival of Mano's relative onto the scene, we know that things are going to go awry.

I didn't find the grooming aspects of the film convincing. Grooming takes experience and sophistication that a young lad wouldn't have. There was a patience shown that was beyond the years of these protagonists.

For those expecting lads and rumpy-pumpy, there isn't any. The age of the actors and the characters they're playing precludes this. For me, the suggestions of illicit liaisons were delicately and appropriately done.

I'm fine with inconclusive endings as I use my imagination to guess what might have happened after. There were several scenarios in my head of what might have come afterwards. I know why it happened like this. Any follow up to the last scene would have been at odds with the subject matter and themes of the film as well as its languid storytelling. The film is about longing, desire and danger, it's not a detective story.

I don't regret having watched this by any means. But it shouldn't have been so long.

An Argentine drama. It is about an adolescent who is in the stage of sexual awakening and looking for someone to live those experiences with, but in doing so falls into the wrong hands. Quality. Slightly parsimonious. LGBTQ Winner of the Maguey award at the FICG. The protagonist's performance is spectacular, the gestures of desire are shown in an extraordinary and impeccable way. A fabulous stage and film direction. It's about deception, extortion, sexual desire and awakening, the search for identity. It shows in an assertive and timely manner the little or no interest of parents in their children and the lack of communication in modern times. An interesting exploratory journey. The only problem is that the ending is fully interpretive and cuts off abruptly leaving you with the feeling of wanting more from the movie.

A closeted gay teen, unwittingly blackmailed with a secretly-recorded sex tape, is pressured into making child pornography as a participant and a recruiter of young boys. "For each kid you bring you'll get around a month of your dad's salary," the blackmailer tells his victim, "It's just a job, you see."

It's an important topic given the enormity of the multi-billion dollar child sex video industry and the lifelong trauma experienced by exploited kids.

"El Cazador," aka "Young Hunter" is not an exposé. Director Marco Berger focuses on one iconic story, that of 15-year-old Ezequiel, caught in a pornographer's trap, and 13-year-old Juan, the target victim who sees in Ezequiel a surrogate for the father he's lost. It's further complicated by Ezequiel's falling for Mono - his first boyfriend, he thinks - but also the dude who set him up.

Ezequiel, played beautifully by Juan Pablo Cestaro, wrestles with his dilemma in silence to a great degree - a confused kid, in over his head, with no one to turn or talk to. Free of explicit sex, the script is heavy with talk of shoot planning, gaming, texting, skating, and parental subterfuge. Meanwhile, Berger's shots are quietly coaxing the audience to identify with Ezequiel's angst, even while he grooms Juan as the filming date nears. The film's open-ended resolution is reminiscent of Japanese cinema, a moment in time for the audience to ponder, no Hollywood ending here.

Berger explores this challenging story with humanity and compassion for its innocent young victims, a cautionary tale for anyone unaware of child porn's workings. With fine direction and smart cinematography, "Young Hunter" is a courageous effort which won the support of Argentina's National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts. Some say the final cut needs a trim. Still, it's well worth watching.