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Low Tide (2012)
The sad story of a good son and of his absent mother
"Low tide" is a 2012 film directed by the Italian director Roberto Minervini, about a few days in the life of a twelve-year-old Texan boy (performed by Daniel Blanchard) during the summer holidays which he spends in total solitude as his mother (performed by Melissa McKinney) works and when she doesn't work, she lives her separate life having fun with friends.
At first glance it may seem like a film without a coherent plot and without meaning, perhaps even a little boring. After all, it is a one and a half hour film in which the dialogues are limited to no more than 20/25 minutes in total (and perhaps I'm exaggerating by excess): not that I counted them, but the first word of the film occurs even after 8 minutes into the game and it's "Vernon?", when the boy knocks on a neighbor's door; the next word occurs 4 minutes later, and it is always the boy who, woken up in the night by deafening music coming from his mother's room, calls her before entering ("Mum?"). To have a first skimpy dialogue we have to wait until minute 17, when the boy tries to teach Vernon to play bouncing stones on the water.
Further strangeness, we don't even know the boy's name, although he is the main character of the film (in fact up until now I have called him "the boy" or "the main character"): no one calls him by name, not even his mother of whom we don'tknow her name as well. Even in the credits, we read "The boy" and "The mother". But we know the names of all the secondary characters. Oddily, isn't it?
It might appear to be a bizarre choice by an eccentric director: but if you try to get into his soul (the director also took care of the screenplay), you can sense that this is his precise stylistic choice aimed at better outlines the extreme loneliness in the life of this poor boy. I feel this director's choice as a clear homage to the so-called "Italian neorealist cinema".
Come back to the characters, as I said before, the mother is totally absent in her son's life: she is never at home during the day and very often even at night because she loves to have fun with her friends. And the rare times she comes home before her son goes to sleep, she barely speaks to him and just to ask him to bring her a beer or what there is to eat. She bites something and then she gets into bed.
It seems that this boy is to her a kind of bother presence that complicates her "social life", but which, at least, keeps her house in tidy. Not that the woman has much trouble bringing her current lover to her house doing all she want to do, regardless of her son who is in the next room. Moreover, often, she throws parties at her house with lots of alcohol, drugs, and whatever. Always with the son staying in his own room.
As said, the boy spends his days completely alone also because he has no friends. Occasionally he joins a strange neighbor, Vernon, with whom he goes around collecting empty cans to raise a few dollars with which to buy some food. In fact his mother rarely goes to buy food and when she does, she only buys canned one that is certainly not suited to the needs of a growing boy.
As you might have understood, the boy (I'd better invent a name for him: it's annoying to always call him "the boy") is certainly the core of this family, both because he earns by himself a few extra dollars, but above all because he does all the houseworks that should be the responsibility of his mother, who is messy and not at all attentive to household cleaning: the boy often changes the sheets, does the washing machine, he is a tidy and clean boy who always takes a shower or bath, altough we always see him wearing the same clothes: short dark trousers and a light blue sleeveless vest. Evidently they are the only items of clothing he owns.
The only times that mother and son spend some time together is when she occasionally make him helping in her job at a nursing home where she is a janitor. Not exactly what we could call "quality time with your son", I must say.
But despite all this mother's lacks, the son loves her and cares for her, as if he were the adult and not she. We clearly see that one evening, when the woman returns to her house over drunk: her son drags her into her room as best he can and puts her on the bed; then covers her with the sheet and lies down next to her, hugging her. The love of a son that many mothers would like to have.
One evening she decides to take her son to a fair in the city: the boy is excited and wears his best suit (actually, nothing other than a decent red shirt and long trousers). At the party, as usual, she lets herself courting by men while her son wanders around. Suddenly, the boy realizes that he has been left there alone. We see the boy desperate and angry for the first time: to get home he has to walk several miles late at night and alone and crossing dangerous roads.
The miles he walked must have been a lot, because the boy, having left the city in the middle of the night, arrives home when it is already daylight. Mom, obviously, isn't there. He washes himself because he is dirty and sweaty and then, as usual, he collects the dirty laundry (his mother's too) to put it in the washing machine.
But this time there is something different in him doing that usual housework: he appears almost absent, thoughtful; which is understandable, given the bad experience of the previous night and the tiredness. But is it just that? Or else?
When he grabs the liquid detergent to pour it into the washing machine, he looks at the bottle as if he had seen it for the first time. Or as if some ugly ideas had just popped into his head. Not even time to think about it and he takes a sip of detergent. The unpleasant taste and the irritating effect force him to spit it out before swallowing it. But evidently the boy is quite resolute in his decision to put an end to his very young life and, gathering all the courage he has, he takes another big sip of detergent, and this time he swallows it.
The poisonous effect of the detergent is immediate: the boy begins to cough loudly and continuously and staggers towards the hall where he gets down on all fours, then collapses to the ground motionless. We can't even imagine how desperate and hopeless the boy must have been to consciously carry out such an extreme and even physically painful act.
But, fortunately, someone loves this good and serious boy: we see him at the hospital fortunately alive after having got a gastric lavage. He is about to cry, apparently shameful for what he did, and not willing to hug his mother that takes him into her shoulder.
However, the final scene is a breath of hope that this boy's life, after the extreme act (fortunately failed), is going to change for better: his mother takes him to the seaside, the two of them alone. The boy enters the water and enjoys the coolness of the morning waves; his mum joins him and they start to play with the water, laughing as we never see them doing; then the two hug each other. For the very first time, the mother cuddle his son as if he were a toddler, with true love; the love that any mother should have for her child, especially if sweet and good like this one.
All nice and heart-breaking: was it really necessary the boy doing what he did, to give him all the love that he deserved?
En tu ausencia (2008)
When adults play with the feelings of a boy, it can only end badly
"En tu ausencia" (In your absence) is a 2008 film by Spanish director Ivan Noel. It was actually his first film, to make which he sold his house and most of his belongings. The talented director has wonderfully impressed on the film - as a painter would have done on his canvas - the wonderful sunlit landscape of the countryside around the small hilltop village of Ubrique, near Jerez, located in the astonishing Andalusia (southern Spain)
Equally surprising is the acting naturalness of the locals - all at their first experience - and above all that one of the very young Gonzalo Sánchez Salas who plays the protagonist, Pablo, and grows physically with him: in fact filming took a year because the director wanted to capture the changing seasons and landscape, reflecting the mood and thoughts of the protagonists (so the boy starts playing his character at age 11 and finishes at 12).
Pablo Gonzales is a 13-year-old who lives in the countryside quite far from the village and from the boys of his age; Pablo has no other way to spend his summer days wandering alone in the open air running, jumping and doing things that you can do only at his age. Sometimes he practices with his father's rifle.
He has a friend who lives not far from him, Julia, a cheeky fifteen-year-old who casually helps Pablo in the transition from childhood to adolescence, giving him some "advice" even on sex (ok, more practical examples than advice, I must say) .
One day, while wandering through the fields, Pablo meets a man, Paco (played by Francisco Alfonsin), whose car broke down there, in the middle of nowhere. The man asks Pablo if he can help him start the car while he fiddles in the engine compartment, but it's no use, the car won't start.
The local postman, who arrived on his bicycle, also offers to help, but he can't do it either. To the postman's specific question, Paco replies that he is from northern Spain, remaining suspiciously vague about the precise location. That's why, having gone far enough, the postman, with an excuse, brings Pablo closer and tells him to go home and not stay with that unknown man.
Pablo doesn't listen to him at all and stays there with the man who asks him if he can take him to the village mechanic who goes to the site with them and, after a check, tells Paco that the car must be taken to his garage and that he will need a few days to find spare parts. Paco thanks him and tells him that an old friend of his lives in the area, even if he doesn't remember exactly where: they served together in the army and he has been looking for him for many years. When he reveals his name - what an incredible coincidence! - that friend is Pablo's father!
When the mechanic has left, Paco asks Pablo if he can take him to his father. While they're walking to the village, Paco tells him about his friendship with his father. The boy listens with his head down, sad. When they reach a decadent cemetery, Pablo enters and heads towards a tombstone: Paco now understands that his old friend was dead and bursts into tears.
Paco asks Pablo how it happened and the boy vaguely replies that he fell and died after three weeks in hospital. Pablo describes his father as an exceptional man, very close to him and who loved his son. And if his father punished him, it was because he was scatterbrained and his father wanted to raise him well.
But while the boy states these things, his flashbacks make his father appear different, far from be kind to his son, whom he often punished harshly and heratless in someway. Like when his father forced him to drown his dog who had caused damage in the chicken coop.
Oddily enough, Paco seems to know things he shouldn't be supposed to know about Pablo's life. In particular, he tells him that anyone has his own secrets and has done things in life to regret about. He tells the boy: «no matter if you have made mistakes in the past: you are guilty of nothing; you are a good boy.» Something truly precise, not random.
The fact is that Pablo, despite his very young age, really has something to regret about. In fact another flashback let us realize that it was Pablo who accidentally caused his father's death: the man is on the roof to repair some tiles and Pablo come and get the ladder on where the man had one of his feet, whithout seeing him at all. The man falls to the ground, suffering serious injuries that will lead to his death.
Paco's very affectionate attitude towards Pablo make the boy begin to feel a strong bond with him, but it is something that seems to go slightly beyond simple friendship: the following day Pablo and Paco are at the lake: once out of the water, the boy strips completely naked and lay down right in front of Paco, almost luring him. Paco invites Pablo to get dressed because it is not an appropriate behavior. So Pablo does it.
After a while arrives the postman (always him) to tell Paco that his car is fixed, then he leave. Paco and Pablo also leave and Paco tells Pablo that now he has to leave forever. The boy, very sad, tells him he must stay, he can live at his house; but the man smiles and tells that it is not possible.
In the meantime, the mechanic's son drown in the lake while he's playing with two friends, who deadly scared, tell the adults that they don't know what's happened, but they had seen Paco there. The postman that had seen him there with Pablo short before, put the blame on Paco for the boy's death.
Pablo returns home to grab his rifle and sees Paco's hat hanging in the entrance. He come close to his mother's bedroom whose door is slightly open and sees her in bed with Paco, both naked. Paco is saying that it was easy with Pablo who in only two days ended asking him to live at his house. He also says that Pablo is a good boy but he is a bit strange, different... like "a little queer".
So it became clear that the two had known each other and had been lovers for some time. It is all too evident that everything was organized from the beginning by the two lovers to make sure that Pablo could become very close to Paco and could thus accept him as his stepfather.
What he saw and heard causes Pablo's anger to explode and he start to shout insults at Paco, running away in the courtyard. Totally out of his mind, he points his rifle at Paco, who has just come out. The man tries to calm and disarm him. In the meantime, the postman, just arrived, snatches the rifle from Pablo hands and then shoots Paco who collapses in a pool of blood.
Pablo is terrified and in tears; his mother kneels over her lover's body, regardless of her son who is totally shocked repeating "dad, dad" - as if he were reliving his father's death - and then runs away towards the lake where he sits down and bursts into endless tears.
Once this dramatic scene has faded, a leap of several years, takes us in the present: Paco did not die, but the serious injuries suffered bring him in a wheelchair. The man tells an adult Pablo the whole story for the first time: both he and his friend (Pablo's father) loved the same woman (Pablo's mother). But when Pablo was born she marries Pablo's father who "wins" the love dispute between friend. After her husband's death, Pablo's mother called Paco because she still loved him and conv9ince him to move at her's. And we know the rest.
Paco tells absent Pablo that he doesn't blame him for what happened, after all he was just a child. As if the fault did not lie exclusively with the two adults who had concocted such a selfish and cruel plan, which meant to play with the feelings of a child who had recently lost his father and for whose death he felt guilty.
While Paco is still talking, Pablo leaves without having said even a word and letting the man alone with his ghosts and his selfiness.
Kapgang (2014)
A 14 y.o. boy has to deal with confused sexuality and the loss of his mother
Second feature of Danish director Niels Arden Oplev, "Speed walking" (2014, original title "Kapgang") is an intense and realistic snapshot of the daily life in a little town in the Jutland (North Denmark) in the mid-seventies, the years of the liberalization of porn in the country.
It is a film that mainly focuses on three great milestones of human life: love, betrayal and death. Normally only the first two are related to the life of a teenager; when Fate also adds the death of a loved one, the framework can only become darker and devastating and a very strong personality is needed to not give up to the ordeals of life.
Martin (played masterfully by Villads Bøye, 15 y.o. When filming) is a 14 years old athlete who is excellent in speed walking (which gives the film its title): he's very talented and likely to become the Danish champion in his age group. He is also going to have his confirmation that involves to organize the lunch ceremony at the restaurant.
Martin has a confused sexuality: he is in fact strongly attracted to his schoolmate and sports partner Kim (played by Frederik Winther Rasmussen), with whom he usually does things that we can certainly define as "sexual", such as kisses, hugs, caresses and mutual touching of genitalia.
However, neither of the two boys defines himself and what they usually do as "gay": they say they do these things to train for when they have to do it with the girls; but they're probably both lying. Martin certainly does, because he does like these things: actually he always asks Kim to do that, even when the friend is not so willing to, even in the locker room after training!
But, strange to say, Martin and Kim both have a feeling for Kristina (Kraka Donslund Nielsen), a beautiful girl in their classroom and both try to approach her in a certain sexually way: will it just be the sexual confusion typical of adolescents?
However, one sad day, returning from his training session, Martin sees all the Danish flags in the streets at half-mast and all the people looking at him in a strange way; when arrived home, he sees his father's appliance shop closed and Lizzi, his mother's best friend, comes in tears to tell him that his mother is dead.
Dead? In what sense? Why? How? Wasn't it just a simple flu? No, it wasn't, Lizzi explains to him: it was a blood cancer that quickly killed her.
When entered the house, Martin sees his father, Hans, literally destroyed by sorrow: the man lies almost inert on the sofa crying in despair; Martin's older brother, Jens, is in an even worse mood: he has locked himself in his room wearing his mother's jacket and sunglasses and is screaming like a madman.
The only one who seems keep calm in that hard moment is Martin himself. Actually it is more disorientation than calmness, because the boy seems on the edge of exploding into tears. But with a father and a brother that appears to be completely useless, Martin is the man of the house who must do the honors to those who come there to offer their condolences for the grieving loss.
The following morning Martin has to take care of his father who has moved from the marital bedroom to the warehouse at the back of the shop where he's lying motionless in a makeshift bed: he even has to help him get dressed!
However, surprisingly, Martin join his mates speedwalking: perhaps it is his way of releasing his grief and tension, given that he has not yet shed a single tear since he was told the bad news. But what is even more astonishing for us viewers, is seeing Martin at Kim's house first talking about Kristina's breasts (after all they are 14 years old...) and then even playing their usual sexual games. After that, moreover, he meets Kristina and even try a sexual approach with her that she refuses.
So, could Martin be so insensitive and heartless as it appears? No he is that way not at all: he is just little more than a child who does not yet know how to deal with the tragedy that has struck him (maybe he does not even understand what that means) and when he does, it will be in a violent and uncontrolled manner.
In fact, the next day, when the funeral is held, everyone is around the grave where the white coffin has just been placed; the priest is pronouncing his prayer with emotion, when Martin's sorrow finally explodes violently: he tries to throw himself into the grave - barely held back by some people - screaming that his mother can't be dead, they have to open the coffin to get her out because she's alive. Senseless words mixed to a lot of tears: his reaction is so violent that his uncle had to force him home to clean him up because he is all dirty with soil, dust and tears.
Days go by, and things at home are not going well at all: he, the younger of the three males, has the unnatural task of keeping together a destroyed family with a father who knows nothing about how to look after his sons (and who goes to the local hairdresser to let off steam with sex) and the brother who is still the bizarre pathetic double of his late mother. Martin does this by cooking, doing housework and even going to burn all his mother's clothes and things in the incinerator, because his father didn't have the courage to do that. However, Martin keeps for himself one of his mother's dresses which he will put at night on his pillow to fall asleep.
In so much mourning, there is also room for a beautiful sentimental moment: Martin and Kim are returning home at late sunset and in the dim lights of the evening Martin asks his friend: «Have you ever been in love with more than one at the same time?» obviously meaning that he likes both Kim and Kristin. But his friend, perhaps pretending not to understand, replies that you cannot love more than one person at a time: it may be a coincidence, but shortly after this disappointment, Martin become sort of engaged with Kristina, altough he and Kim continue to do their sexual plays which on a rainy day take the explicit form of mutually masturbating naked in Kim's bed.
The date of Martin's confirmation is approaching: The boy now has to chose who will sit next to him instead of his late mother and he goes for Kristina and his friend Kim. Initially he had placed his maternal grandmother, but then removed her after she had had bad words with Martin's father.
At the restaurant, Hans has some beautiful words for his son: after praising him for his remarkable sporting skills, he recognizes in front of everyone that Martin was the one who had the most courage in facing their serious loss, the courage Hans himself lacks; he tells that when he looks at Martin he sees his mother as for his courage in facing the life, his determination to get the best out of life even in the darkest hour; and he thanks Martin for being him.
Unfortunately, that day is bound to worsening: Martin finds Kim and Kristin having sex on the cot in his father's warehouse. The boy is upset: partly because he drank some liquor but above all at the sight of his girlfriend's betrayal with his best friend (and vice versa) Martin runs out, on the verge of fainting and pukes profusely on the lawn of the house.
A neighbor sees and helps him but he doesn't want to go back to his house; the woman takes him to her house and gives him a shower while he doesn't speak (probably still shocked by what he saw) and stands still and dazed while he is washed, as if he were a small child. Then the woman puts him to bed, where he falls asleep almost immediately, and she calls his father to reassure him.
The scene changes and we see Martin winning his speedwalking competition while being loudly cheered and praised by all the people who love him, including Kim and Kristin who now date together. Still tired from the race, Martin is on his legs, panting: he turns back to look at all of them smiling largely; then he stands upright and looks into the distance, towards the future that awaits him. With the confidence and the courage he has always had in sport, as in life
All in all a film really worth seeing, both in terms of the strong themes covered and in terms of the way in which the characters are brightly outlined, where Martin, the young protagonist, stands far above the others: he is not only the glue of the family torn by the tragedy, but he also managed to forgive his girlfriend and his best friend who betrayed him in such a vile and petty way, just out of carnality. And maybe - but we will never know this - he could have also discovered that he might like the boys more than the girls or - who knows? - everyone will gives him love and warmth, be it a boy or a girl.
As for the acting, Villads Bøye deserves a particular mention for the very high quality of his interpretation of a difficult character like Martin. Based on the specific scenes of the film, he manages to expertly alternate joy with sadness, even desperation. And when it comes to sentimental or vaguely erotic moments, he manages to show both the typical curiosity and cheekiness of teenagers and the appropriate hint of shame for what is happened or is going to happen.
Voor een verloren soldaat (1992)
Great film and a true insight into a rough reality that many pretended not to see
"Voor een verloren soldaat" is a Dutch 1992 movie directed by Roeland Kerbosch based on the homonymous autobiographical novel by the Dutch dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig.
Being autobiographical, the events are true and we cannot discuss what the film tells us, although we can certainly give our point of view on the delicate topic covered. Which, let's see it straightly, we should call pedophilia and not love.
Mid 80's. Jeroen Boman (performed by Jeroen Krabbé) is a middle-aged gay choreographer who's setting up a ballet for the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the Dutch territory by Anglo-American troops. In that work he wants to put all his feelings because that story depicts his young life too.
The story jumps back to the winter of 1944: Amsterdam is occupied by the Germans and many boys and girls are sent by their parents to a small village near the coast, in order to escape the dangers of the war and the consequent shortage of basic necessities.
Jeroen (performed by Maarten Smit) is 12 years old and he is one of those kids. He is assigned to a kind and very religious family of eel fishermen. However, the boy struggles to settle in and suffers from nostalgia, barely mitigated by the presence of Jan (performed by Derk-Jan Kroon), a slightly older friend of him, who however lives with another family.
One day, he and Jan are on the beach, where they had gone to see an American plane overturned and floating on the sea, not far from the shore: Jan lies naked (he wounded his side during underwater explorations of the wreck) and talks of the local girls; but Jeroen observes absorbed the line of his naked body. It's obvious he likes boys.
Some time later, the Allies Troops free Amsterdam: in Jeroen's village arrives a bunch of Canadian soldiers that settles in the barracks previously taken by the Germans.
The Canadian squad is commanded by the Sergeant Walt Cook (performed by Andrew Kelley), a kind and handsome soldier in his early twenties.
Sergeant Cook offers Jeroen a chocolate bar and then he takes him for a ride in the army jeep.
Walt is immediately struck by the spontaneity and naivety of the kid who, in turn, is fascinated by this handsome young man, majestic in his uniform and always wearing sunglasses.
Very soon a strong friendship - actually a bit romantic too - is established between the two. Initially Walt - who is gay - treats Jeroen as nothing more than a younger brother to play with or give him driving lessons or teach him to clean his rifle. But, not long after, that friendship evolves in a sensual way, until it becomes a real love relationship when the two find themselves together in the shower and sleeping in the same bed.
Walt's comrades accept quite naturalness this relationship although Jeroen is just a kid. The fact is that they stick all day long together with local girls, taking them into their rooms; so they don't care at all about who Walt takes in his bed.
Jeroen's foster father - despite not guessing at all the intimate relationship between the two - is quite aware of the excessive closeness between Jeroen and the soldier; but he doesn't prevent the kid from seeing Walt, because he sees no signs of change or disturbance in Jeroen; on the contrary he sees him quite calm and serene.
And it arrives the day when Walt takes Jeroen's virginity as well: fortunately we can only guess that by seeing the boy prone on the bed grinding his teeth in great pain while Walt lies on top of him.
But the harsh experience seems to have left no moral marks on Jeroen who continues his usual life, spending all day with Walt every day.
But one day, Walt's crew is ordered to leave the village and he decides to leave without telling Jeroen anything. He simply gives him his sunglasses. However, Jeroen had already secretly stolen a photograph from his wallet so he could keep it as a love memory.
Jeroen hears the news when it is too late and the soldiers have already left.
Further bad luck, the photo of Walt (which Jeroen kept in his shirt pocket) crumbles because the shirt has been washed. And Walt's nameplate - which the soldier had put around the neck of a scarecrow in the courtyard of the foster house - is taken away by a crow while Jeroen tries to take it away when in pajamas and barefoot under a pouring rain.
Now Jeroen has anything that can remind him of his beloved: the boy throws himself on the ground and cries in despair, all soaked in the rain, in a state of deep prostration; luckily the foster father sees him and carries him back into the house in his arms.
Anyway, the next day Jeroen's mother arrives unexpectedly: now that the war is finally over, the woman has returned to pick her son up and bring him back to Amsterdam. And for Jeroen this is a great relief from his sadness at least because he can leave the places that remind him of his story with Walt, the "lost soldier".
We are back in the 80s again, during rehearsals for the ballet; Jeroen's assistant and dear friend, who knows the whole story, gives him an envelope inside which he finds an enlargement of Walt's tag taken from an old memory photo of his old foster family. Jeroen appears really move.
End of the film.
This is the pure and simple plot. But I cannot avoid expressing some personal considerations; after all that's my own review.
Altough Walt were in his early twenties, he was a man. He fought in a war and maybe he killed some men. He was a soldier, after all. The fact that he falls in love with a 13 years old kid even going as far as having sex with him, it's not love: it's just rape of a kid, it's pedophilia and nothing else.
He could have (and should have) stopped at caresses and tenderness - and it would still have been on the edge of a kid abuse - without going further. But he chose to cross this labile boundary line, for his own sexual satisfaction. Don't call it love, please.
Why I say so? For many reasons.
He didn't even have the nerve to tell Jeroen that he had to leave in shortly. He didn't even prepare him for the inevitable farewell (after all, it's known that a foreign soldier is recalled to his homeland sooner or later). He didn't even say goodbye to him as is appropriate even between friends, let alone between lovers. He didn't even look for Jeroen in the following years, not even when the boy became an adult (OK, we don't know it for sure, but we guess that from the title of the book/film and from the reaction of the adult Jeroen to the sight of Walt's nameplate).
Put this way, it seems to me that Walt did what many Allied soldiers did when they liberated European lands at the end of World War II: venting their sexual instincts on local girls, taking advantage of their state of profound moral prostration resulting from years of war and bombings.
Thanks to this book and this film, we know that these sexual instincts were also satisfied thanks to kids abuse. Or at least on one for sure, the real Jeroen.
For these reasons, all my contempt goes to the real soldier Walt (now surely dead).
Leaving aside these important moral issues, the film is absolutely worth seeing: the very delicate topic is treated almost with grace from the point of view of the real Jeroen (the one evidently expressed in the book that inspired the film) and there are no scenes that we could really define as "uncomfortable" (apart that few seconds of Jeroen's rape), despite that at the basis of the narrative there is a story that can be quite disturbing for a lot of people.
As for the acting, Maarten Smit (who plays young Jeroen) did a great job because in him are certainly visible all the qualities of the young protagonist: innocence, spontaneity, innate sadness, adolescent curiosity for forbidden things, as well as the right amount of cheekiness that leads him to take decisive steps towards the person he loves.
Hjartasteinn (2016)
A must-see tear-jerking story about the thin line between friendship and love
Well... yes: I gave this film 10 out of 10. And do you know why? Because there are movies that you can't just watch only with your eyes, but you also have to use your heart.
That's the case of Hjartasteinn (Heartstone) an Icelandic film released in 2016, directed by Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson.
It's somewhat astonishing that a nation with a population of only 335,000 inhabitants in 2016 (most of whom live in the capital Reykjavík) can be able to create such masterpieces, with low budgets and a bunch of young actors who perform excellently.
Yet the plot is anything but new: two male teenagers best friends, one of whom has a secret gay crush on the other who, instead, is in love with a girl and starts a relationship with her.
But... it may be the breathtaking and harsh landscape (Borgarfjörður Eystri in Eastern Iceland); it may be the realistic acting of the two young actors; it may be that the difficult topic is addressed in a delicate and poignant way; whatever it will be, actually this film is undoubtedly a great little gem in the world movie panorama and not only in the "coming of age" genre.
Thór (Baldur Einarsson, 14 years old in 2016) and Kristján (Blær Hinriksson, 15 years old in 2016) are two close teen friends who spend their days together in a tiny village near Reykjavík.
So close, so different: while Kristján is tall and has blond hair and blue eyes, Thór is shorter, dark hair and eyes. Furthermore, while Kristján is taciturn and shy, Thór is bold and harsh.
They both live in difficult families.
Thór grew-up in a only-women family, because his father left home some time ago to go somewhere with another woman.
Thór's mother struggles with everyday life in rising up three sons, but she still wants to be desirable for men. Thór's sisters are quite weird: one writes strange black poems that praise death; the other draws anything. Both, however, harass Thór and even provoke him sexually.
Kristján is an only son who lives with a violent father, who often gets drunk and fights with people over nothing; sometimes he hits his son and his wife doesn't have the bravery to react to the situation.
But, the very difference between the two boys is that Kristján is secretly gay and has a crush on Thór. Although, to prevent Thór from understanding that, he pretends to like a local girl, Hanna.
Nothing surprising, because Hanna's best friend is Beth, the girl Thór is in love with; even if he doesn't have the nerve to come clean to her.
Occasionally the two boys play sexual games typical of male adolescence, which involve touching each other, comparing their masculinity, even kissing as a challenge. But while Thór only takes it as a joke, for Kristján this is the way to feed his love and his sexual desire for Thór.
Actually, Kristján really needs to be physically close to Thór, the true object of his youthful big love: pretending to like Hanna, is the way for him to stay with Thór all day long, talking about the two girls on how to arouse their interest.
One evening, Thór's sister has the bizarre idea of painting a bold picture: the two friends have to pose naked, barely covered by a cloth, and with their eyes painted. Thór must rest his head on his friend's shoulder who must stare at him intensely while embracing him affectionately.
The result is a very beautiful and at the same time erotic painting. An homosexual content that Thór doesn't immediately grasp but which Kristján really appreciate, because he has never been able to be so erotically close to his beloved.
The days go on: Thór manage to get engaged to Beth and the two couples stay together almost every moment.
Kristján is willing to do anything for Thór's sake: one night that the two friends spend sleeping with the two girls at Beth's house, Thór wets the bed (Beth had not allowed him to go to the bathroom in order to not wake up his parents) and runs away in shame. When waking up, because the two boys were sleeping in one bed and the two girls in another, Kristján takes the blame on himself.
Another day he agrees, albeit reluctantly, to borrow two horses from the stable of a friend of his father, because the girls want to spend the night tenting in the mountains.
Unfortunately this is seen by his father as theft: the man savagely beats his son in front of everyone, while the girls run away and Thór is stoned crying.
All for Thór's love.
After the events in the mountains, Kristján begins to be more nervous and moody, because he realize that he is losing Thór; not as a friend, but as a lover. Thór's love is Beth and he doesn't want to give in to the evidence. Thór can't know anything about his friend's internal turmoil and sees with dismay his weird way of acting.
But the things are bound to go worse: one unhappy night, Thór's sisters are having a party in their house during which the local bully finds the painting of the two boys and shows it to everyone present there, practically the entire youth of the village.
Suddenly, since then, Thór and Kristján are seen as gay lovers.
Kristján's father, who is also homophobic, takes the two boys to the mountains to test their courage by having them go rock climbing. Or, more easily, to find out who is the sissy between the two.
During Thór's descent, the post holding the rope bends and the boy risks falling into the void. But, fortunately, Kristján and his father manage to pull him up without much damage, apart from a large wound in his hand.
Kristján hugs him vigorously, perhaps too much, crying profusely. Which is understandable, given the friendship that binds them.
But this episode, combined with others in the past (including Kristján's visible excitement on the evening of the painting) finally make Thór understand that in Kristján there is something more than a strong friendship.
After that, Thór tells Kristján that he's going to be himself that night, when he'll go to Beth's, and that if Kristján stops to be so weird then everithing will be fine.
Kristján agrees (even if he doesn't think to), and leaves with his head down, almost in tears, and Thór looking at him sadly from the window.
While Thór is having his first time sex (in reality we only imagine that by seeing Thór's happiness the following morning, returning from Beth's), Kristján fights against the ghosts of his loneliness after the collapse of the world he had built in love for Thór.
At the height of his despair, Kristján finds himself in his father's friend's stable and, seeing the gun used for cattle, he takes it and shoots himself.
Thór's joy after the night with Beth, vanishes when he's back home: his family is in tears and his mother tells him that Kristján tried to take his own life and that he is in serious condition in a hospital in Reykjavík: all of them must pray for him.
All his brazen confidence with which he faced his friend the day before has now gone and Thór has an emotional breakdown: he hides in his room lying in the bed feverishing; he refuse all contacts, wordless. Surely he's overwhelmed by a sense of guilt but also by the fear of never seeing his friend again.
However, in the end, his mother forces him to go out to get some fresh air. But it is of no use: the other boys with whom he used to play football, now call him "homo" and he even gets into an argument with Beth and they break off: Thór claims that Kristján didn't want to commit suicide, while the girl asks him why he could have done it.
Days pass and Thór is told that Kristján has returned home. He is excited and goes to his friend's house but Kristján's mother doesn't let him in because, she says, Kristján can't see anyone at the moment. Evidently she blames on him for his son's reckless act.
Things get worse when Thór's ex-girlfriend tells him that Kristján's parents are getting divorced and his mother and Kristján are moving to Reykjavík.
Now Thór really needs to see his friend before he leaves.
So, thanks to Beth's help, he manages to enter Kristján's room through the window and sees his friend lying in bed groggy from the medicine and with his head bandaged. He barely speaks. Thór promise him that he will visit him often in Reykjavík and Kristján nods and takes his hand. Hearing Kristján's mother arriving, Thór runs away but comes back to gently kiss his friend on his forehead. And then he disappears from where he came from.
The film ends with Thór standing on the dock where a child is fishing and swearing; like he and Kristján did until a few time before. How many things had happened in those last months!
Thór stares at the horizon with a mixture of emotion and sadness: his gaze is no longer that of a boy, but that of a man who has already known things that many men don't even know at an adult age.
A brave boy who has already suffered deep wounds in his young life. And others he will suffer. But now, after these events, he is ready to enter adulthood.
P. S. I read some very critical reviews about the character of Thór, with which I don't agree at all.
Undoubtedly Thór is harsher and less sensitive than Kristján : as I have already said, they have two very different characters and different family background as well.
But let's remember that Thór likes girls and Kristján likes boys, or better he likes Thór. Obviously there is more kindness in Kristján towards Thór than the latter has towards him.
But even if Thór was insensitive, well, Kristján is not an angel who came down from heaven: everything he does for Thór he does out of selfishness, in the sense that he wants his friend all for himself and does not accept that he could love a girl and spend time with her. After all, why does Kristján try to commit suicide? Perhaps to attract Thór's attention?
Actually, Kristján knows that his friend is not gay and can only selfishly hope that he will pretend to be straight like him. Thór, on the other hand, the last thing on his mind is that his friend is in love with him.
The reality is that adolescence is a very difficult age.
Jet Boy (2001)
A very moving canadian movie about the unexpectedly and pleasant switch in the lives of two lonely and deeply wounded souls who meet by chance
A young boy is sitting at a late-night fast food restaurant table, playing with a model car. A man enters. He says something to the boy. The video becomes dark and only the boy's groans of pain are heard as he is raped by the man. The scene takes off: it's morning, the boy lies naked in bed with his private parts covered by the blankets. His eyes are open and he is staring at the ceiling, expressionless.
This is how we are introduced to Nathan, a 13-year-old Canadian boy who has to prostitute himself to get drugs for his single, drug-addicted mother. Actually, Nathan turned 13 that same night. Really a bad way to celebrate a birthday. But unfortunately it's not over yet.
When at home, Nathan gives the drug to his mother that wishes him a happy birthday and tells him that there is a slice of cake in the fridge. While Nathan blows out the candles in the kitchen, we see his mother lying on the bed with her eyes open, dead, probably from an overdose.
Nathan is taken to the police station, where waiting for social services to come and entrust him to a foster family because it is not known where his father is and he has no other relatives in the city.
Taking advantage of the chaos unleashed by an arrested man, Nathan escapes.
Actually the arrested man is Boon Palmer, an undercover special policeman who is trying and capture a big drug dealer. The police pretended to arrest him because they had to plan the operation.
It's night: Nathan comes out from the bathroom of a gas station and sees the arrested man he saw at the police station. He's playing a fast food board game. Nathan sits down at his table and starts tinkering with the game, solving the puzzle.
Boon smiles, then he gets up, takes his hamburger and heads to a phone booth on the street; he makes a phone call, writing a phone number on the foggy surface of a car. When he comes out he realizes that the number has been deleted. Nathan is nearby and looks at him defiantly: it was he who deleted the number to force Boon to give him a lift to Vancouver where Nathan claims to be his father.
So Boon has to do what Nathan wants. After a driving journey, they arrive in the small town where Boon grew up and he tells Nathan that they will stop in a motel there.
The next morning Nathan has made breakfast and serves it to Boon who has just waked-up. He tells Nathan that he needs that number, but the boy refuses because he's worried that Boon might leave him as soon as he gets the number. Boon assures that he won't do it. However he has some things to do so he can wait.
What Boon has to do is go to his father's house, because the old man is unconscious, seriously ill. From what Boon tells his father, we can understand that their relationship had been difficult.
Meanwhile, Nathan is at the baseball field where he watches some kids play. Boon arrives, sits next to Nathan and tells him to join the boys on the field. Nathan does it even though he doesn't know how to play at all; a boy named Lloyd seems to take care of him.
At that moment Lloyd's mother, Erin, arrives: coincidentally, Erin and Boon were engaged when they were 17, but one day Boon flew away because he couldn't stand living with his father. Then Erin married Boon's best friend, Ray, who died when Lloyd was 4.
Erin obviously thinks Nathan is Boon's son and he lets her think so.
That same night the two boys go out with two older boys, Clay and Dennis. They smoke and drink.
Then Lloyd stays in the car with Dennis while Nathan and Clay are further away talking. Clay suddenly kisses Nathan on the mouth. Nathan retreats not as upset or shocked and Clay is astonished. Nathan explains that his mother and her boyfriend got excited if Nathan watched them have sex. He sometimes wants to hear all these filthy stuffs but he also wants to be a good guy.
Clay in tears of shame asks Nathan not to tell anyone what just happened and he assures Clay that this is their secret: Clay won't tell Nathan's and he won't tell Clay's.
Meanwhile, a drunken Dennis races his car towards the city monument (the world's largest ball of string) which slips from its support and rolls hitting an oncoming police car.
All four boys are taken to the police station.
Erin and Boon are in bed when they are told that Nathan and Lloyd are to be picked up at the police station. At that point Boon tells Erin that it is better she gets Nathan because the boy is not his son: Nathan told her he was and he went along with it because he wanted Erin to think he had someone.
Erin is amazed: who the hell is that boy? And who the hell really is Boon?
However, Boon decides to take a risk and go get Nathan just as Erin leaves with Lloyd.
So Boon and Nathan go back to the motel where Boon tells Nathan that they're leaving at the dawn and that he must talk to Erin. Nathan tells him that he wants to say goodbye to Lloyd too, but Boon rudely tells him that he can send Lloyd a postcard when he'll get Vancouver. There their paths will separate forever.
Later, Lloyd goes to the motel and reveals to Nathan that love has been reborn between his mother and Boon. This drives the jealousy of Nathan, who wants Boon only for himself: he goes crazy because he realizes that Boon will return without him so he scolds Lloyd and pushes him out. Left alone, Nathan bursts into tears.
When Boon returns, Nathan is deeply sleeping in bed, so Boon has to lie down next to him. The boy has only his undies on, so Boon can see in horror some long, deep scars on Nathan's back.
In the night, Nathan wakes up and seeing Boon at his side, he tries to reach his manliness. Boon suddenly wakes up, stops Nathan's hand and throws the boy to the ground; Nathan almost crying tells Boon that he can have sex with him if he wants; after all he is good enough at it and it will be for free.
Boon is really horrified and shouts at the boy to stop acting like this. Nathan, in tears and raging as well tells him that Erin doesn't need Boon and begs the man not to leave him alone.
Seeing no reaction, Nathan gets dressed and runs away very angry.
The next morning Boon tells Erin's that he must leave because something big is happening and he can't help Nathan who also has a father in Vancouver. As Boon leaves, Erin yells at him that he's not like his old father and must help Nathan.
It's night: Boon is on the phone with the drug dealer, when he sees Nathan standing on the sidewalk across the street: it's clear he's trying to sexually lure someone. A luxurious black Cadillac arrives: after talking to the driver for a while, Nathan gets into the car which leaves immediately.
After chasing the drug dealer that one is arrested by the police. Boon speeds up and disappears into the night determined to find Nathan.
In a hotel room, Nathan is half naked and the man tries to caress and kiss him, but the boy dodges and runs away, locking himself in the bathroom. Fortunately Boon has noticed the black Cadillac parked in the hotel parking lot and with gun in hand forces the doorman to take him to the room where Nathan and his rapist are.
Boon enters and throws the man to the ground shouting at him to stay down or he will kill him!
Then he heads to the bathroom and gently knocks on the closed door asking Nathan to open.
The door opens: Nathan is sitting on the bathtub step wearing only his pants and is very upset and in tears, with his head on his knees.
Boon asks him if the man harmed him. Nathan nods and says tearfully that he doesn't have a dad... he asked his mother about him but she didn't know. He has no one.
Boon is touched and tells him to come closer. The boy does it a little reluctantly but Boon hugs Nathan tightly; also Nathan holds Boon close, in tears, with his head on Boon's chest who gently caresses his head. Boon tells him not to worry because he won't let him go.
When they exit the hotel, surrounded by police cars, Nathan realizes that Boon is a cop and not a criminal. Then Boon and Nathan get in the car and head somewhere into the night.
Actually they are going to Erin's house: when they get there late at night, Erin and Lloyd open smiling. Everyone hugs each other and enters the house.
A new life is to begin for all of them.
Overall, that is a very moving movie about the unexpectedly and pleasant switch happened in the lives of two lonely and deeply wounded souls who meet by chance
The most woundel soul is obviously Nathan's: he's only thirteen, he doesn't have no one but his drug addicted mother for whom he's forced to sell his young body and who dies the day of his birtday.
We cannot help but feel pity and affection for this little boy who just needs someone who loves him and doesn't treat him like a sexual object. As he says, he just wants to be a good boy, despite the terrible wounds that have been inflicted on his body and soul.
Boon's wounds were caused by an emotionally absent father who made his son a wandering man who can't empathize with anyone. A hardness that melts when he promises Nathan that he will be with him forever. In the end, his life gave him the chance to prove that he is better than his old father and that he will be a wonderful father to Nathan. Because those who are hurt know how not to hurt
As for the acting, the performance of the then fifteen-year-old Branden Nadon was fantastic: it really seemed like he was experiencing first-hand the ugliness that life had reserved for him. And I think it would have been nice if the film had investigated his character's life more thoroughly, because there are so many things left unsaid.
Brecha (2009)
A must-see movie that deeply investigates the difficult relationships between fathers and children facing the traumatic events of our daily life
"Brecha" is Ivan Noel's first film, I must say his best, and is set in Lebrija, a village in southern Spain. With the exception of Francisco Alfonsín (who plays Andrés, the father), the cast had no acting experience at that time.
José Ramón (played by José Ramón Lafita Narbona) lost his mum when he was a child: she choked on something in the meal and died.
Since then her beloved husband Andrés became an alcoholic; when Josè was 8 years old, his dad struck and killed a boy with his car while he was drunk and was sentenced to 4 years in prison.
Now Josè Ramon is 12 y.o. And he's thrilled because his father is about to be released from prison and coming home. Even though, after his mom death, his dad used to beat him and two years ago he had refused to see him for a prison visit, and the child had been very upset.
But now he's home coming and José Ramon has something very important to tell him.
During his father's imprisonment, Josè had lived with his grandmother (Andres' mother), without friends except for a black cat that the child had saved on the street as a puppy and called Satan.
After all, who would ever want to be friend with the son of a child murderer? Who knows, maybe he had even killed his wife!
Actually José thinks to have a friend, Dani, a boy three years older than him; but Dani isn't a real friend because he exploits the kid in order to stole newspapers and other small things and perhaps for other unspeakable things that we can only guess by seeing Josè putting his shirt back on after entering an abandoned house with Dani.
Anyway dad is home, that's the most important thing. Now they can start a new life, hopefully different from the previous one.
But things don't go as hoped: although Josè is a good son - he also helps him in the kitchen and with the housework - his father is always sad and doesn't talk to him much.
Yes, one Sunday Andres takes Josè to the lake, but things goes wrong as soon as Josè mentions his mother. Everytime Josè do that, his father gets really angry: it almost seems that Andres blames his son for his wife's death.
One sad day, José loses his only friend: at school Dani is caught with a stolen phone and, since he is of a criminally age, he blames the theft on Josè, also saying that the boy uses to steal newspapers and brings them to befriend him.
When the school principal tells him Dani's words, Josè is really upset; the woman shouts to him that Dani is a good boy who cannot lie because he is from a good family while everyone in the village knows Josè's family. So Josè understands that it isn't useful to tell the truth - which is that the bad boy is Dani - and takes the blame on himself.
Furthermore, a bad night Josè is very angry with his father who had scolded him heavily; he returns to his room and kicks his cat because he want to vent his anger. Josè immediately understands that he made a big mistake being violent like his father with an innocent creature, but it is now too late: the cat has escaped. The day after Josè and Andres find Satan killed by a car.
At that point Andres tells his mother that he can't bear to stay with his son: he tried but he didn't succeed because it's not possible to live with someone who took away the person you loved more than anything else.
We thus discover that Josè's mother was accidentally dead because her little kid had stuck a tiny toy inside a meatball while he was helping her cooking. She had told him that the Christmas cake have a little surprise inside and the boy wanted to give her an early love surprise.
So the things are now clear: Andrès can't stand his son because he caused his wife death - altough it was accidentally and he was just a little kid - and he can't tell him that. Better to leave him with his grandmother; better the boy hate him for that. But he can't live anymore with him.
Andres and his mum have a huge argument and the woman tell his son that she loves the kid but she raised him up when his father was jailed, now is him that must deal with that.
And after all he must forgive the kid because it wasn't really his fault.
Later Josè and Andres have a bad argument too and Josè runs away.
When he returns, his father scolds him, yelling at him to go to grandma's; Josè begs his father to let him in because he has to tell him something very important. What sort of thing? In tears Josè confesses that it's his fault if his mother died; he was the one who killed her.
The father asks him how he knows that and the boy replies that he heard grandmother tell the story two years ago to a friend of her.
Andres can't believe it: how could a 10-year-old child carry such a burden on his shoulders? How could he bear his guilt for two years, without asking anyone for help and living his sad life this way?
At that point Andres ubderstand that had been selfish and had gotten to the point of not being able to stand his son because of what had happened when he was just a kid.
So a breach opens in his wall of pain (the breach of the title, in fact) and Andres embraces his son who is still in tears, assuring him that from now on life will change for both of them.
Overall a must-see movie that deeply investigates the difficult relationships between fathers and children facing the traumatic events that fate could bring in our daily life.
The skilful use of flashbacks makes us witness the involution of this unfortunate family: when the mother and wife were still alive, it was a happy family that gathered even to cook simple meals; after her death, the family dissolves almost suddenly with the two remaining males barely speaking to each other, until the outbreak of violence which brings destruction to the lives of the two.
The film makes clear that the son is the best man of the two, because the he forgave his father for all the times he beat him and for not having been able to process a loss that was not only his own loss but also for his child. A passive attitude that leads the man in prison.
As for the acting, a special mention deserves the young protagonist José Ramón Lafita Narbona whose deep melancholy he expresses in every moment of the film, arouses in us sympathy, closeness not merely compassion.
And the rare times we see him smiling in the film, it is the smile of life, of the joy of life that his character has not lived for years, at least from the death of his mother until the confession made to his father which changes their relationship forever and positively.
Ellos Volvieron (2015)
A very symbolic and disturbing film from Ivan Noel, again. But a little masterpiece if you think out of the ground
"Ellos volvieron" - that means "They returned" - is a quite disturbing movie as well many of Ivan Noel's movies are.
Let's start by saying that it is sort of thriller with strong supernatural connotations, so avoid seeing it if you are the kind of people that want to find the "earthly" logic in every scene of a movie.
In a small Argentinian village, three children of an elementary school - Lionel, Lucio and Sabrina - disappear while they are playing inside a sinister almost-in-ruins former hospital called "The Shame", built by some nazist immigrants.
In that place, the boys of the village freely play any kind of games, including sexual ones and even weird games that seem to imitate the tortures that nazis inflicted to their victims.
After vain searches, fortunately the missing children return home three days later; they are completely naked and dirty, as well as in a catatonic state: they don't speak at all and therefore they are unable to help anyone understand what happened.
A federal inspector is sent to lead the investigation, while the city slowly sinks into a state of deep suspicion towards everyone.
The main suspect seems to be the boys' classroom teacher who has recently arrived from another town and, since the boys' return, he keeps on delivery strange speeches about evil winning over good and the need of a a rebalancing.
One day, after a football match in a muddy field, the boys hurry to the shower: Lucio and Lionel are facing the wall with their hands covering their genitals, but when they turn and take their hands away, everyone sees with horror that they are been emasculated!
So now's a case of sexual abuses.
While the police carry out their difficulty investigations, strange deaths begin to occur.
It starts with Mr. Himmel, a believed mad descendant of the builder "The shame", fell (or pushed down) from a balcony of the building. There is even a video circulating on YouTube about the suicide (or murder), apparently taken by some kids.
One night, the mayor sees Lucio alone in the park and after being accused by him to be responsible of the death of some people, the mayor run away from Lucio but collapses in the middle of the street and is run over by a car.
Then it's the school headmistress' turn, struck by the collapse of the basketball hoop, under the impassive eyes of the children.
The city judge, while officially talking on television about the case, collapses dead, bleeding profusely and unusually from her nose and mouth.
The school psychologist hangs herself after the teacher rather clearly asked her to do so - after having told her that the children are dead - because she knew the truth, namely that Lucio was born from the incestuous relationship between his mother and his grandfather.
The story is now clearly explained and we see it in a flashback: Lucio, Lionel and Sabrina were dead the very moment they disappeared, all killed by Juan.
Indeed, Juan only wanted to kill Lucio: he lures him into the basement and suffocates him with a plastic bag; unfortunately Lionel and Sabrina arrive and see their friend limp on the ground; Juan tells them that he fell and then lashes out first at Sabrina and then at Lionel and kills them both by suffocating them with the same plastic bag.
Then he strips naked the children's corpses, leaving them on the ground and taking away their clothes to simulate a sexual murder. Later, some wild animals will unwittingly complete the simulation by feeding on the genitals of the two males: "We were just flesh" will tell Lucio's ghost to Juan.
But if the three children had died that very day, how on earth could they have returned home?
Slow down: remember that it is a supernatural movie: it was their soul that had returned to take revenge on all those people who had been in some way responsible for that ugly chain of horrors and wickedness (the evil, in the end of all) which had had as its final result the brutal killing of Lucio and his two friends.
It all begins when Lucio's grandfather wants to demolish the old Nazi hospital to build a new one; but the state funding never arrived, because it was grabbed by the mayor.
The corrupt judge manages to place the blame solely on Lucio's grandfather, saving the mayor.
The situation worsens and Lucio's grandfather falls into financial but also psychological ruin, becoming a sort of useless background figure in the life of his young daughter, Lucio's mother; and this perhaps played a role in the incest that will occur years later, from which Lucio will be born.
Then the school psychologist, who was also Lucio's mother's psychologist, knows about her secret (who were Lucio's father) and, perhaps without wanting to, confides it to the Julio who at that point goes crazy and decides to kill Lucio. The rest is known.
And indeed all these people die, some naturally (well, natural so to speak...), some committing suicide (or being led to do so). Everyone except Lucio's grandfather and mother who were still guilty for their part, having fathered a child through incest. But evidently the mother is always the mother. But grandfather?
So it was all some kind of nonsense dream?
Or was it collective madness?
And how was it possible that people didn't realize that they weren't real kids but only souls? Yet they visited them, they saw the genitals cut off in the boys, they took photos! And the family members didn't see these mutilations when they returned? They were too evident, in fact right at the beginning of the film we can see the blood running down Lucio and Lionel's thighs while their mothers hug them crying.
And then, who was really the teacher? A sort of angel sent to earth to rebalance the evil situation? Or was he simply a psychic through whom the spirits of children acted?
In my humble opinion it's all a symbolism, typical of the director: the children have returned home in the sense that the police found their bodies and brought them home. But we, seeing them flesh and bones, are led to believe that they are alive, we delude ourselves that they are, even if the two boys are horribly mutilated.
And the died people? They were bound to die because their own fault and they were probably killed by someone, maybe by the teacher. Or maybe by the classmates. Who knows it? And, anyway, who cares about?
Whatever happened, it's not over yet: now it's the turn of Juan to die: Lucio (indeed Lucio's ghost) appears into Juan's camper; Juan apologizes saying he didn't mean to do it; the child tells him that he knows it but now he must fix the situation; the two get into Juan's van and while he is driving on a road overlooking the sea, Lucio's spirit pushes hard on the accelerator, while the spirits of Lioned and Sabrina appear from behind and clasp him. The van flies off the road and crashes into the ravine, catching fire.
Fire is the purification of all evil. And so we can see the three children re-emerge from the depths of the water and play happily and festively on the seashore at sunset.
Their soul can now rest in peace.
Their bodies, well we'll never know. But it doesn't matter. After all, the beauty of a person, especially a child, lies in his own soul.
Rechazados (2018)
An authentic masterpiece: dystopia or inevitable future reality?
In an unprecised future, the civilized world has been wiped out and the new humanity lives in small rural villages, where a very primitive neo-religion and superstition are the masters.
This religion warns against the constant snares of the devil and imposes all sorts of prohibitions, including the desire for knowledge.
One of those prohibitions is to eat or come into contact with what is believed to be the flower of the devil, the "chiza".
Actually, it is a very sweet flower with hallucinogenic effects which however open the mind to knowledge: this is whay it is forbidden to eat it.
Anyone who violates this moral law is banished from the village and exiled to the mountain with the other sinners.
Actually, those sinners are all boys and children, because their innate curiosity has led them to do the opposite of what was forbidden.
Every year the children of the mountain must provide the villagers with a girl who has had menstruation (for reproductive purposes) and a boy who is able to lift a certain weight (as a field worker).
But when children refuse to fulfill this barbaric pact, things take the worst possible turn: one of them is brutally killed and hung naked from a tree in the center of the village.
Some villagers object that they exaggerated acting that way, and are killed as sinners too.
The children, in revenge, with a magical rite, cut off the village's water supplies and this leads to the death of all the inhabitants.
Although it may appear dystopian, in fact it is a strongly allegorical film, full of symbolism as well - which I think wants to warn us about the danger of elevating conformism and single thought to dogma.
So the new superstitious religion is nothing but the conformism that wants us to be ignorant consumers of anything they would us to get.
The chiza flower has many similarities with the biblical fruit of sin which, if eaten, would have brought to knowledge. And, you know, knowledge is dangerous for today's globalized and consumerist world.
And the exile (the rejection of the title) of those who dared to eat the flower is nothing more than the today's attempt to control the thought through the ban of those who do not conform to the single thought.
Ultimately, it is an authentic masterpiece for people who are free and used to thinking for themselves. Others will probably find it a stupid and senseless movie. Poor them!