herimesquida
Joined Jun 2015
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herimesquida's rating
Anahí Berneri: A Year Without Love. Argentina. 2005.
Teddy Award at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival.
This is a touching debut film directed by a young heterosexual woman, focusing on a young, HIV-positive, gay writer who struggles daily with the fear of AIDS and his apprehension about new forms of HIV and new antiretroviral therapies.
To exorcise his fears, he turns to BDSM and writing. It is also a way for him to find, through the pleasure of pain, the strength to continue living and to try to find true love.
I must emphasize the film's formal perfection, particularly thanks to its remarkable cinematography and editing. Delicious ironies abound, such as the tensions arising from life with his aunt, sometimes more unstable than the protagonist, and especially the pressure from the publisher who rejects his poems, arguing that there's no market for poetry, while simultaneously hoping the budding writer will write an autobiographical novel rather than poems.
What immediately strikes the viewer in A Year Without Love is the absence of any desire to gratuitously shock, even though nothing is sugar-coated or sanitized by political correctness. Pablo is presented in all his rawness, without embellishment: the character is exactly as he appears. The film suffers from no self-indulgence in its portrayal, nor any critical commentary on the pleasures he indulges in. This prevents the film from descending into moralizing pamphleteering. The camera follows the character in his relentless quest. We see him scouring personal ads in search of a potential boyfriend, frequenting pornographic cinemas. But he also gives French lessons in his apartment to make ends meet, or shares pleasant moments with Nicolás (Carlos Echevarría), his best friend.
The story takes place in 1996, the year in which, thanks to new triple therapies, AIDS went from being a fatal disease to a chronic condition. But Pablo questions the effects of these medications on his body. He doubts, and he writes.
For the director, AIDS, homosexuality, and the whip are merely functional elements of the plot, never ends in themselves. They are elements that serve to tell the story, just like the costumes, makeup, and props.
The true theme is the difficult quest for love and happiness, exacerbated, in this particular case, by the proximity of death. "Could I continue to write all this time while being in love?" "I'm hurrying because I suspect that if I fell in love, I wouldn't be able to write anymore..." the protagonist muses, aware that some wounds of the soul only open up under the influence of solitude.
The rest is pure pleasure, and it is to this pleasure that he tries to surrender when he decides to participate in the sadomasochistic sessions.
The scenes in the leather club are filmed with simplicity, without any vulgarity. The narration is measured, understated, and seeks to avoid any sentimentality. This could, at a stretch, be considered a flaw.
But this reservation is swept aside by Juan Minujín in the lead role, who delivers a complex and subtle performance that truly embodies Pablo. The actor never resorts to tics or mannerisms; he is strikingly realistic, and his acting is poignant.
It's a surprising and engaging film, sometimes quite funny, but certainly never as bleak as one might expect given its subject matter.
#henrimesquida #cinemaandliteraturegay.
Teddy Award at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival.
This is a touching debut film directed by a young heterosexual woman, focusing on a young, HIV-positive, gay writer who struggles daily with the fear of AIDS and his apprehension about new forms of HIV and new antiretroviral therapies.
To exorcise his fears, he turns to BDSM and writing. It is also a way for him to find, through the pleasure of pain, the strength to continue living and to try to find true love.
I must emphasize the film's formal perfection, particularly thanks to its remarkable cinematography and editing. Delicious ironies abound, such as the tensions arising from life with his aunt, sometimes more unstable than the protagonist, and especially the pressure from the publisher who rejects his poems, arguing that there's no market for poetry, while simultaneously hoping the budding writer will write an autobiographical novel rather than poems.
What immediately strikes the viewer in A Year Without Love is the absence of any desire to gratuitously shock, even though nothing is sugar-coated or sanitized by political correctness. Pablo is presented in all his rawness, without embellishment: the character is exactly as he appears. The film suffers from no self-indulgence in its portrayal, nor any critical commentary on the pleasures he indulges in. This prevents the film from descending into moralizing pamphleteering. The camera follows the character in his relentless quest. We see him scouring personal ads in search of a potential boyfriend, frequenting pornographic cinemas. But he also gives French lessons in his apartment to make ends meet, or shares pleasant moments with Nicolás (Carlos Echevarría), his best friend.
The story takes place in 1996, the year in which, thanks to new triple therapies, AIDS went from being a fatal disease to a chronic condition. But Pablo questions the effects of these medications on his body. He doubts, and he writes.
For the director, AIDS, homosexuality, and the whip are merely functional elements of the plot, never ends in themselves. They are elements that serve to tell the story, just like the costumes, makeup, and props.
The true theme is the difficult quest for love and happiness, exacerbated, in this particular case, by the proximity of death. "Could I continue to write all this time while being in love?" "I'm hurrying because I suspect that if I fell in love, I wouldn't be able to write anymore..." the protagonist muses, aware that some wounds of the soul only open up under the influence of solitude.
The rest is pure pleasure, and it is to this pleasure that he tries to surrender when he decides to participate in the sadomasochistic sessions.
The scenes in the leather club are filmed with simplicity, without any vulgarity. The narration is measured, understated, and seeks to avoid any sentimentality. This could, at a stretch, be considered a flaw.
But this reservation is swept aside by Juan Minujín in the lead role, who delivers a complex and subtle performance that truly embodies Pablo. The actor never resorts to tics or mannerisms; he is strikingly realistic, and his acting is poignant.
It's a surprising and engaging film, sometimes quite funny, but certainly never as bleak as one might expect given its subject matter.
#henrimesquida #cinemaandliteraturegay.
Stephen King's "Hunger Games": better and more brutal, brought to the screen with simplicity, power, and savagery.
The filmmaker explores his material in a raw and cruel way with disconcerting precision. He doesn't explode with tension, but rather insinuates it slowly, subtly.
And it works, because for most of the film, we find this rhythm that evokes not a catastrophe, but a slow agony.
The filmmaker explores his material in a raw and cruel way with disconcerting precision. He doesn't explode with tension, but rather insinuates it slowly, subtly.
And it works, because for most of the film, we find this rhythm that evokes not a catastrophe, but a slow agony.
Even regarding the espionage plot, the complete absence of a convincing villain is a major flaw. Furthermore, I couldn't identify with any of the characters; the good guy wasn't really good, the bad guy wasn't really bad, and the others were only superficially developed. From that point on, I got bored.
In episode 4, there's a long chase, and I realized that I didn't even care who would win!
On the science fiction side, they don't explain how George remembers the time jumps, nor how a drug allows others to relive those memories. If the entire universe rewinds, brain cells must do the same, making it impossible to retain any memory at all.
Given its crucial role, I'm willing to believe that the Agency is the most fundamental and secretive organization on the planet. Yet, its personnel appear to be nothing more than a handful of amateurs, lacking any particular training that would distinguish them, at best, from an ordinary military unit. And they operate with ridiculously limited resources considering the critical importance of their mission.
Furthermore, they all do pretty much whatever they want without any supervision. Absurd.
In episode 4, there's a long chase, and I realized that I didn't even care who would win!
On the science fiction side, they don't explain how George remembers the time jumps, nor how a drug allows others to relive those memories. If the entire universe rewinds, brain cells must do the same, making it impossible to retain any memory at all.
Given its crucial role, I'm willing to believe that the Agency is the most fundamental and secretive organization on the planet. Yet, its personnel appear to be nothing more than a handful of amateurs, lacking any particular training that would distinguish them, at best, from an ordinary military unit. And they operate with ridiculously limited resources considering the critical importance of their mission.
Furthermore, they all do pretty much whatever they want without any supervision. Absurd.
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