Friday, April 20, 2012
THE ANATOMY OF DESIRE
Today's movie was the Mexican
El Cielo Dividido / Broken Sky (2006)
A splendid display of show don't tell.
Dialog is minimal as two young men fall in love and explore their new relationship in depth. The sex is plentiful and we catch it all. But it is sex that is all over. Total. Deeply erotic because of the love that goes in it. Perhaps infatuation but what the hell.
The story is simple. Boy meets boy. Boys fall in love. Boy's attention wanders, small hurts grow, alienation, boys part, after awhile the original love breaks through and they reconcile.
That is it.
This film is interesting because it does not have any anti gay stuff in it. These guys live in an ideal world where open affection and all the rest goes unhindered.
This sounds funny but there are no cell phones. There is no interference from college. It is just, plain and simply a love story.
Now. The thing is that it is fundamentally a silent film and everything is told with closeup, expression, body angles, atmosphere and color, design, visual thing after visual thing.
It is glorious to watch.
There is some anxiety over whether they are being foolish to give each other up, over whether something "bad" will happen. Only emotional "badness".
I would say that this is an extraordinary piece of work.
Incidentally, it is not even vaguely sexy most of the time in the porn sense.
It is extremely sexy in the sense that attraction is deconstructed and reconstructed. No touch or kiss unturned.
Gotta see it to get it.
I think it is a 5 out of Netflix5. I might even buy it.
