Le prédateur

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.

Berger usually gets away with hiring so-so actors by engaging with his camera work and its eroticism...which would have been extremely uncomfortable in a movie like this. For that reason, it makes no sense for him to try to tackle this subject with the same resources. Long shots, lifeless actors and open endings do not mix well. He does not get away with artsy shots and beautiful cinematography. Kudos to the editor for managing to tell a story with limited resources.

I have watched all but one of Berger's films (2015's 'Mariposa'). I really liked 'Plan B' and 'Hawaii' both which count on very good perfomances of their lead actors, specially Manuel Vignau. 'Absent' and 'Taekwondo' are not as good as these I first mentioned, but are okay. 'The Blond One', however, is just a bad one. After watching 'Young Hunter' I now just think that Berger might be becoming self indulgent. His formulas are just becoming too repetitive whereas his actors are becoming less and less charimastic. If you're gonna play a 'thriller-like' take like this one you simply need good acting or else your movie is just gonna feel souless. The writing here is just not very good either. It feems like he had a bunch of shots in his mind but didn't know how to connect them or where to take the history afterwards. Juan Pablo Cestaro looks like he doesn't know what to do with his character. The tension the film tried to build up is artificial.

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.

Marco Berger is an excellent filmmaker, but this one is a miss for me. His better work "The Blonde One" is more of my speed. The kid in this film, his unibrow, as someone said before was way too distracting. Also, the pace was so incredibly slow, it took me out of the story at times. And so it goes. The beat goes on.