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(Torn between the life society forces one to live and the life one needs live...........)
How utterly devastating for lead character, Alberto, as for any of us, to face the realization that everything he's done in life (carrying on a family work tradition, courting and marrying, parenting) is NOT who he really is. Elena's discovery of his activities forces this realization on him and places him in a situation with which he can not cope. We so clearly see this realization in his final return to their home (too late for his son's birthday party and after yet another session of love-making and sexual intercourse with Diego) where he is greeted by Elena's "how-could-you / final straw" stare. It's a look he knows he deserves, yet one to which Alberto can only respond by mutely sinking into a chair, the complete despair on his face so plainly telling us he's aware it's finally over between them. It's a grief stricken expression that says: I can't do this any more.
He tells us in his final film moments that he has never been allowed to truly be who he's wanted ("I've been lying since I was a kid / hated those with me in school / hated my job"). A third generation (grandfather, father before him) airport operations worker, a husband / father......all roles 'expected' of him, all roles in which he'd truly tried to give his best. But, in the end, all that trying wasn't enough. Nor was finding "the love of his life" (Javier Bardem's Diego) to be enough, although he'd thought....hoped....it would be. Recall that, in the afterglow of their sexual intercourse, Alberto looks to Diego, lying at this side, and says: "I think this was the best time I've had in my whole life." Then in a later scene, following intercourse: "I love you, Diego. I will for a long time." Can there be any doubt who was the one for him?
So, it isn't at all that his love for Elena is greater, it's that his commitment to their life had been pushed to become so strong (expectations......expectations, meeting them can tear you apart). And at the near conclusion of everything, when Diego says: "you have to start over......," you can plainly see the realization in Jordi Molla's oh-so-expressive eyes and face (this man is so beautiful), that he's just at a complete and total loss for knowing how to keep and love a family, as he's been strictly raised to do, and at the same time have the relationship he must have with Diego, the love of his life. Yes, it is his conflict over this very love which will bring everything crashing down, and his non-solution will be to run, run from it all. Doing so will result in tragedy.
FINAL RESTATEMENT: In the end, then, we can see that we have been given the study of a man raised and pushed into being something he isn't. It's the story of oh, so many out there. Some are able to break out of the mold, others not---the strength of commitments (to spouse, to children, family) being too great. Or perhaps that's the excuse used for staying within the mold. But in the hearts and minds of those who do stay, the longings, those yearnings for "the other" are there.......always there.......and they hurt. Alberto was able to break from the mold, but only to a point. And in the end, trying to live in both worlds tore him apart emotionally. This film shows you the results.
PS---Many aspects of this Spanish film presage ones in America's later released "Brokeback Mountain" (2005). Was Ennis's conflict any more soul-wrenching than Alberto's? True, Ennis is much the simpler man, but over and above that, when it comes to the love of your life, does it really matter where in this world you find that love (out-of-the-way ranch town or bustling city.......high-rise urban areas or soaring mountains)?
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(Torn between the life society forces one to live and the life one needs live...........)
How utterly devastating for lead character, Alberto, as for any of us, to face the realization that everything he's done in life (carrying on a family work tradition, courting and marrying, parenting) is NOT who he really is. Elena's discovery of his activities forces this realization on him and places him in a situation with which he can not cope. We so clearly see this realization in his final return to their home (too late for his son's birthday party and after yet another session of love-making and sexual intercourse with Diego) where he is greeted by Elena's "how-could-you / final straw" stare. It's a look he knows he deserves, yet one to which Alberto can only respond by mutely sinking into a chair, the complete despair on his face so plainly telling us he's aware it's finally over between them. It's a grief stricken expression that says: I can't do this any more.
He tells us in his final film moments that he has never been allowed to truly be who he's wanted ("I've been lying since I was a kid / hated those with me in school / hated my job"). A third generation (grandfather, father before him) airport operations worker, a husband / father......all roles 'expected' of him, all roles in which he'd truly tried to give his best. But, in the end, all that trying wasn't enough. Nor was finding "the love of his life" (Javier Bardem's Diego) to be enough, although he'd thought....hoped....it would be. Recall that, in the afterglow of their sexual intercourse, Alberto looks to Diego, lying at this side, and says: "I think this was the best time I've had in my whole life." Then in a later scene, following intercourse: "I love you, Diego. I will for a long time." Can there be any doubt who was the one for him?
So, it isn't at all that his love for Elena is greater, it's that his commitment to their life had been pushed to become so strong (expectations......expectations, meeting them can tear you apart). And at the near conclusion of everything, when Diego says: "you have to start over......," you can plainly see the realization in Jordi Molla's oh-so-expressive eyes and face (this man is so beautiful), that he's just at a complete and total loss for knowing how to keep and love a family, as he's been strictly raised to do, and at the same time have the relationship he must have with Diego, the love of his life. Yes, it is his conflict over this very love which will bring everything crashing down, and his non-solution will be to run, run from it all. Doing so will result in tragedy.
FINAL RESTATEMENT: In the end, then, we can see that we have been given the study of a man raised and pushed into being something he isn't. It's the story of oh, so many out there. Some are able to break out of the mold, others not---the strength of commitments (to spouse, to children, family) being too great. Or perhaps that's the excuse used for staying within the mold. But in the hearts and minds of those who do stay, the longings, those yearnings for "the other" are there.......always there.......and they hurt. Alberto was able to break from the mold, but only to a point. And in the end, trying to live in both worlds tore him apart emotionally. This film shows you the results.
PS---Many aspects of this Spanish film presage ones in America's later released "Brokeback Mountain" (2005). Was Ennis's conflict any more soul-wrenching than Alberto's? True, Ennis is much the simpler man, but over and above that, when it comes to the love of your life, does it really matter where in this world you find that love (out-of-the-way ranch town or bustling city.......high-rise urban areas or soaring mountains)?
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