User reviews

A bleak study of loneliness set in a claustrophobic apartment in Mexico City featuring a fearless performance, or a masochistic one, take your pick, by Monica Del Carmen as Laura. Laura spends most of her days and nights in her joyless apartment spying on her neighbors and inventing relationships with them in her mind. She occasionally goes out to clubs and brings home men for unrewarding sex. They invariably leave her lonelier than before. She meets Arturo (Armando Hernandez) who brings a sado-masochistic satisfaction to her sexual life. Meanwhile she ominously checks off the dates of her calendar toward the end of the month marked in red. This film is as explicit as it needs to be and Laura's world is not easy to view. Director Michael Rowe has achieved the film he sat out to make, I'm sure, and the totality of the realism can be uncomfortable as it should be. By setting the movie entirely in the small apartment and by the astonishingly natural performance of Ms. Del Carmen, you feel, smell, and know this movie like it was a fever dream. You want to give Laura a big hug at the end. Not for the squeamish or near squeamish.

Monica del Carmen is Laura Velez, a journalist living alone in an apartment in Mexico. She spends most of her time there writing her stories or cooking for herself.

She also picks up strangers for one night stands much like Diane Keaton in "Looking For Mr. Goodbar" years ago. Del Carmen is short, overweight and plain looking but she does an admirable job portraying a lonely young woman searching for something or someone, we're never quite sure what she wants or needs.

The sex scenes are somewhat explicit for a mainstream movie, so if you are offended by such material, stay away.

This is a technically simple story mostly shot in the apartment where Laura lives. He final partner has a sadistic streak, so be forewarned of some degrading behavior which is fairly unpleasant. That being said, I would like to see what Ms. del Carmen does in the future.

Watched this last night with my wife and we both agreed it is perhaps the most accurate depiction of modern life of young adulthood that either of us have ever seen. This film is to that lonely time of self discovery in the mid to late 20's that Apocaplyse Now is to the Vietnam War. Not only is the depiction of sex graphic and frank but it isn't sexy. And there is about the best explanation for U.S. Mexico relations -and the Mexican gov. in general (or lack thereof)- in this film that I have ever heard: i.e. the monetization of security. If you have seen and liked the films of Carlos Reygadas, Fernando Eimbcke and Arturo Ripstein then you will understand the type of aesthetic at work here. If on the other hand your idea of Mexican cinema is Vicente Fernandez or the Santos lucha libre films you are in for a rude awakening.

A very unusual obsession with the approaching "leap year" anniversary of 29 February as the protagonist's story finishing off with a disturbing and sad climax. Mónica del Carmen as Laura exudes flesh and blood for this character and her journey through the personal tragedy, marked by urban solitude and loneliness. She discovers sexual fetishes that lead to the unity of body, space and redemption. There's no limit as Laura begins to experience transgression and dedicates herself to licentious exercise of sadomasochism.

This is definitely an arthouse character study of a victim of love, lust and loneliness. More like a kinky version of Jeanne Dielman, toned-down Hisayasu Sato that brings to mind the films of Jean-Claude Brisseau, Götz Spielmann, Silvio Soldini, Catherine Breillat, Lars von Trier, Conrado Sanchez, Werner Schroeter, Julio Medem and Fabrice Du Welz recent Alleluia (2014). Albeit this movie delivers intense sense of alienation and uncomfortable artistic totality of realism delivered at its rawest form. Soul- baring piece of cinema whose troubling eroticism is ultimately a vehicle of compassion for the deeply wounded women. Not recommended, proceed with caution.

The problem with this movie isn't the content or the nature of the story. Yes, it wallows in brutal and degrading sex. Yes, it excuses violence against women. Yes, it has a bleak outlook on life. But I can handle those.

The real issue is that the film is just plain bad. The writing is turgid, the directing uninspired, and the acting amateurish. The first 45 minutes could have been told in 15--or even 10--by a competent filmmaker. When it finally got to the real nastiness, I fast-forwarded past it. As I said, I can handle it, but why degrade myself when there's no point? In fact, since my DVD player still showed me the subtitles when running at double speed, I had no trouble following the tissue-thin plot. That's right: this movie is paced at less than half the rate the viewer could absorb.

In the end, the filmmakers only have one thing to tell us, and it's not at all profound. Actually, I take that back: despite all the raves from other reviewers, I don't think the film has anything at all to say. It's just one more "Look at me, I'm an 'artiste' and isn't it cool how I can shock you?" movie.

I recommend that you watch an Adam Sandler movie instead of this one. Sandler's films are also awful, but at least they have a point.

We are introduced to Laura and her sad life. She is a contributor to a business magazine, but spends most of her time in her apartment, wearing pjs. Apparently she took at face value a man to be named businessman of the year for the magazine, wrote the article and it turned out he was a total fraud, but the magazine was already on the stands. She didn't do a background check, since she didn't think it was necessary. So she loses her job, or at least suspended for a time. On her calendar, she marks off the days of the month for February, with filled in red for February 29th. That day has a special meaning which we find out later. She lives in a somewhat seedy apartment (ants, cockroaches) and lives through watching neighbors. It is comfortable for her being there. Other than a brother, she seems isolated, and has numerous one night stands, not wanting to even know their names. One man gets into a rather violent and degrading relationship with her, and it borders on being very dangerous. But she encourages it. As the days count down to the end of the month, just what does she have in mind? She seems to accept the life that she has made for herself, and it is rather dreary and depressing.

This is a frustrating film to watch because it is extremely claustrophobic. After the opening scene, the entire film takes place inside a small apartment. There is little by way of plot. There are many scenes of the young woman talking on the phone with her mother and brother. She also gets visits from her brother. Mostly, however, she gets visited by a man who started as a one night pickup, but the pair starts developing a sado-masochistic relationship that becomes increasingly disturbing. This is an impressive film debut for writer-director Rowe, who favors long takes and a stationary camera, an approach that is effective in conveying the loneliness of the protagonist.

This is by far, the worst movie i've ever seen!!! If i would wanted to see a porn movie... i would rather have accessed into any free porn site and for sure, i could have seen a better quality of BDSM porn, than the vulgar, grotesque and meningless one this movie shows...

Mexican films have become an easy way to watch meaningless sex, drugs and violence... nothing further than that... The topic just doesn't matter, there is always at least one of those in Mexican films...

Plus, The acting of Año bisiesto's principal character is terrible! The phone calls she makes to brother and friend Raul, are just out of credibility...

Cheap production, cheap direction, cheap creativity, cheap acting, cheap story... very expensive the cost of loosing time this way...

"Leap Year" is simple, albeit brilliant filmmaking. There is very little, if any, "coverage" for each and every shot. No close-ups, no pans, no dolly shots, no cranes, no over-the-shoulder, and no reaction shots. The camera remains still and static throughout - time and time again simply letting the drama unfold before our eyes. We are nothing more than a voyeur. It's a bold choice - perhaps born out of budget necessity - but it nonetheless works. What's makes every shot absolutely fascinating is called "life." Human behavior. The success of this film is a tribute to the director, his belief in the story, and most of all, the trust he was able to get from his actors. Although the camera rarely moves, it tells the story better than most Hollywood directors with a much bigger budget ever could.

The film's basic premise; and this isn't giving too much away since it's so heavily sign posted very early on, is that a woman must suffer severe abuse at the hands of a man in order to find happiness.

Terrible film making. The way the camera lingers over scenes of torture and humiliation as if these things couldn't be illustrated in other ways.

It is very possible to portray violence and sexual abuse of women without making it exploitative - Paddy Considine did it in the horrific scenes of 'Tyrannosaur' which, while harrowing, knew where to stop and leave things to the imagination.

What really gets me about films like these is that people who know nothing of such abusive dynamics watch them and have the experience normalized. I'm sure many abusive husbands and partners will get great satisfaction seeing how their acts of violence and hate can actually help women (something they probably told themselves all along).

This is a film which sends out the wrong message about violence towards women. To come back to 'Tyrannosaur', that film is not without flaws but it at least gets the emotional response of women to abuse right. Women do not just put up with rape and torture and then suddenly get better because of some leap of insight. It may seem that way to an abuser of course which is why 'Leap Year' is the ultimate abuser's fantasy. Told from a male perspective and dwelling obsessively on the imagined nobility of female suffering.

A truly dangerous film.

Incredibly dull. I kept waiting for something, anything to happen. Should have turned it off. Slow, boring,depressing. I think we're supposed to feel something for the main character but we don't get anything to hold onto. She leads a painfully boring life and we get to watch every slow meaningless minute of nothingness. Seems the writer, director, expects the viewer to read her mind. Maybe if we knew what she was thinking we would care. Otherwise she comes off as an empty shell of a person and we get to spend every minute not caring. Her sadistic lover, is more of a pathetic wanna be and we have no indication of his motivation nor his character. A complete and total waste of time.

Watch it if you want to see the depressing life of a Mexican lonely woman, if you dont have enough negative material from what we already get in the news.

I've seen lots of raw films about hard to swallow realities, it seems that some independent 'artists' love showing this side of life. Sometimes it's ok if they make you reflect about life, human relations or if you learn something to be a better person. The problem here is that I find that it's pointless, there is no point to watch a situation like this, I feel I didnt learn something, it didn't make me reflect, it was just shocking and depressing to watch. I find this work from certain provocative directors just vulgar, I find it lazy and not very creative, it seems they just make it to get a little bit of attention by shocking the audience, I bet there are lots of ways to achieve that, human minds can be quite nasty.

Laura's character is so complex. We see her living a superfluous life when she interacts with other characters, except for her brother Raul and a guy named Arturo. We descend to the darkest levels of the human psyche along with the main character and that exploration is highly successful by the director. The film is linear, with no jumps in time as does Inarritu or Guillermo Arriaga, and also includes sex scenes which are pretty explicit. Although it seems the movie is just porn, it goes beyond sex. The aesthetic is like simple and I think the merit of the movie is the story and how it show us the life of a lonely woman living on a big city. So, after painful and rough journey, perhaps it is possible to find hope and redemption. A great Mexican film.

This film was, at first sight, a turn off. The protagonist at first seems like a self indulgent loser. The camera remained still and the action, such as it was, took place entirely in a tiny dark apartment. The girl never leaves home except off camera. But viewed as a tragedy this makes sense. The action moving only by visitors, the single setting and the simple themes all add up to create a classic world of claustrophobia and sadness. The sex is honestly portrayed as empty. Unlike Hollywood moves which tend to glamorize sordid situations, in this film the sex scenes are depressing rather than titillating.

As the story plods along we begin to realize that the girl's apparent victim relationship with a sadist has an underlying motive. She needs him to help her reach a goal. ( shades of "a Taste of Cherries") Her conversations with her sexual partners are limited. She seems totally uninterested in her lovers and we could judge her as selfish until we see how she cares about her brother and how she lives vicariously through her neighbours. Despite themes of self destruction, abuse, lying, empty sex and loneliness, the film eventually includes a ray of optimism or art least a possibility of another life. I did understand why some reviewers were put off but I appreciated it rather then enjoyed it.

Leap year is the story of the encounter or rather the break up of Laura and Arturo. Apparently this is a simple story but it contains a lot of details worth taking a second look at. The Australian director and screenwriter who lives in Mexico submerges us in a visual world that is plain and charmless for Mexican standards and someone might be tempted to judge the film by its visual austerity. But this perspective allows Michael Rowe to explore the solitude of Laura, her detachment from others and to slowly introduce us into her adventures with man, what she searches in them or better said who she would like to encounter in them. After seeing the film a close friend told me it was anti Hollywood. Definitely it does not embody a mass market aesthetic. The dark skinned actors and the unappetizing looks of the apartment where the action takes place are ideal to center the attention of the spectator on what is happening to the main character. Scenes like Laura taking off her bra underneath her shirt, picking her nose while working on her computer submerge us into an uncomfortable bodily intimacy. And there are also the very explicit sex scenes with exquisite violence full of details I don't even feel free to mention here that are not exciting in the usual sense but awaken a deep curiosity for the character. This movie was not shown in the Mexican commercial circuit. What does it mean when society that not willing to see herself in the mirror. When Michelangelo Antonioni answered critics of his movie The adventure (1960) he used these words "Eros is sick, man is uncomfortable and this makes him react but he does so in the wrong way, he explores eroticism and he is unhappy".

I like to watch Spanish language movies in order to brush up on my Spanish, especially for an upcoming vacation in Mexico :P This title seemed a little too depressing but something made me decide to go ahead and put it on anyway - I'm so glad that I did. Rather than down in the dumps upon watching this movie, I felt I'd come to terms with some of the grim realities of life as a single adult, and it actually gave me some hope.

If you are not comfortable with graphic sex scenes, I would not suggest this film, although it would seem that's obvious even from the tagline description. The sex is essential to the storyline, and the relationship between the characters, and it might open up peoples' eyes to realize that it's very realistic. Don't be scared of weird sex. It's out there, and people want it, people do it. It's a fact of life in this human body.

Although the storyline is simple and sad, upon reflection, I actually think it's brilliant. It's a story of overcoming grief, even coming of age, that really needed to be told. And the acting from lead Monica del Carmen, how she dealt with the vulnerability and complexity of the character, was a step above what you'll usually see. I would recommend the film in appreciating of her acting alone.

There are some reviews on here that says this movie is misogynistic, or no better than a porn. What a load of rubbish! The sex in this movie is an illustration of a consensual sexual dynamic and pattern that exists between men and women that is very natural. It may or may not reflect an ideal state of emotional health, but it's not abuse, and becoming more comfortable with and conscious of human sexuality is the key to opening up peoples' minds so that we can actually overcome misogynistic tendencies in society. It's also worth noting that it's still rare to see a powerful lead female on screen, in control of her sexuality, and capable of some fairly complex manipulation.

If you're a fan of character studies, art-house type stuff, and movies that are actually GOOD, do watch this one!

If you have watched movies very seriously for very long, you have probably at some point wondered what it would be like if you made a film by rigging up someone's apartment with a bunch of cameras, turning them on, see what happens, and then later editing it down to documentary. A watered-down version of that is done on reality-TV shows, but that would make for a boring film if you take away all of the sensational stuff needed to make reality-TV shows watchable. But it is possible to construct a fictional film that takes the same realistic approach, but using actors, dialogue, set design, lighting, and composition of shots that goes into fictional films. The most famous example of that is Chantel Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which was an obvious influence on Leap Year. Both films provide an intimate portrait of a young women by just showing what she does, day-to-day, with the camera never leaving her apartment. If the viewer pays attention, and if the director uses some intelligence, it can make for an absorbing portrayal of real life, in spite of the fact that it is actors on a film set. Leap Year is far more explicit about sex than Jeanne Dielmann..., but the film really isn't particularly erotic until the final scenes. All that nudity isn't to build her up as an object of lust, but rather to create a sense of intimacy with the character, to show what it's like to be her. She proves to be a pragmatic and unsentimental person, and probably has to be, given her life situation. You might find her life depressing, though there is a clear spirit there, a determination to do what she needs to do. However, the last part of the film becomes sensational and erotic, in an S/M way, living up to this film's reputation as an explicit sex film. If you are fascinated by film, and like to ponder what is cinematically possible, you may want to give this film a watch (as well as Jeanne Dielmann…).

The film seems to be not understood by all.. Sex scenes are not extreme at all, unlike some reviewer comments. One even compared to porn, it has nothing to do with it. There is a bit nudity for people who are sensitive to that, but not over the top sex scenes - there is sex, so don't watch with underage children.

Film is very thoughtful - people who look for expensive mobile scenes and different locations, visually enriching shots, won't like it. This is not an action oriented film. It is a film about isolation, alienation, urbanism but also, deeper reasons for those than what seems like.

It moves slow, single location used, but mostly shows a section of life of a single woman in a big city on her own, hiding her own secrets.. and not getting help on those. Don't read any spoilers, let it unfold on its own, it is the point of story development. So, for people who look for thoughtful indie films.

A raw, uncompromising portrait of a woman journalist, brilliantly played by Monica Del Carmen, who is riven by isolation, financial insecurity and a sexually abusive past. The direction by Rowe is masterful and if you like the work of Haneke and Von Trier, you may well find a lot to appreciate here. The rhythm of the piece is pitch- perfect and whereas the previously mentioned directors have a taste for the hysterical, the treatment here is more humane somehow and less obviously exploitative of the viewer's emotions. I also liked the formal camera-work, lack of close-ups and off-camera sounds and dialogue that created a heightened, tense atmosphere.

All in all, a fine debut film by a director to watch in the future.