Leap Year

So, we've got this chick with a real weird hard-on for the looming February 29th, like it's the expiration date on her sanity, and wouldn't you know it, the whole shebang ends in a climax that's about as pleasant as discovering a hairball in your morning coffee. 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 stumbles into some kinky business that apparently glues her body, her space, and her shot at redemption together. Turns out, there's no "do not cross" tape on Laura as she begins to experience transgression and dedicates herself to licentious exercise of sadomasochism.

This is definitely an arthouse character study into a love-lust-and-loneliness casualty. Think of it as the kinky cousin of Jeanne Dielman, a watered-down Hisayasu Sato that kinda smells like the leftovers of Jean-Claude Brisseau, Götz Spielmann, Silvio Soldini, Catherine Breillat, Lars von Trier, Conrado Sanchez, Werner Schroeter, Julio Medem and Fabrice Du Welz's recent Alleluia (which, let's be honest, was pretty damn bonkers). Now, while this film delivers a potent whiff of alienation and an uncomfortably raw artistic realism, this soul-baring cinematic enema, with its troubling eroticism, is supposedly a vehicle of compassion for this deeply messed-up woman. My advice? Maybe skip this one. Seriously, proceed with the kind of caution. You've been warned.

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.

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.

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.