Jezabel (Spanish)

Jezabel is a striking exploration of how we manipulate others and ourselves. As an adult how subjective and fickle our memory can be and we can rewrite our stories and deceive ourselves without even realizing it. Although occasionally disappointing in its execution, it offers an enthralling premise and intensely tragic moments that will undoubtedly linger in our memories. It is not a gay film per say (our lead character is bisexual and in present ties he has a boyfriend), but the core of the film is not gay sexuality but so much more than that. By looking back at the lives of four affluent young people in Venezuela, it explores the frailty of memory, class struggles, and masculinity. 

The film moves constantly between present (or rather future) and past. Alain is a young troubled man disinterested in life. His boyfriend Salvador is a journalist and somehow conversations between them bring about memories of Alain's youth and his friend circle. Affluent teenagers—Lolo, Cacá, Eli, and Alain—escape the boredom of their existence and the surrounding sociopolitical nightmare through a hedonist lifestyle of sex, drugs, and depraved games. And this continues where we are given many instances of these four engaging in multiple of such activities. Their world comes crashing down when Eli is mysteriously killed and their teacher is accused, arrested, and later brutally murdered behind bars. Salvador finds this subject interesting and he wants to delve deeper into what happened. Alain has his version of story of what happened and as audience we are shown what really transpired. The climax and ultimate reveal is something that one would definitely not expect and I would not wanna ruin this for anyone.

This film is a layered and complex story that goes places you will not expect and leaves you rattled and shocked by the end. I am so glad that I did not know much about the story and I feel this is how this film should be seen. What starts off as a recollection of sex, parties, and other joys of youth ultimately blossoms into something much darker than you expect. Part of the thrill of watching this was seeing how the film goes about revealing and doling out information throughout the story, weaving in more and more layers as it goes. I was initially just casually watching it but as intensity increased, I was deep engrossed into the mysterious teenage world of these 4 teenagers who are constantly having sex in some combination with each other. But it focuses on Alain's memories mostly of what he remembers of his teenage years, how he cherry picks certain tings he wants to remember, how he may have altered some incidents and created his own versions. The writing of the film is incredible. It does take time though to get fully engrossed in the film and to start to make sense of it all. The cinematography captures the stunning beauty of Caracas and the sense of isolation within it. The editing also does an excellent job of constructing the feeling of memories and building the perspective of an unreliable narrator through its stylish cutting between past and future. The gay love story is given the attention in the beginning but soon the focus is more on the death mystery and the explosive finale and how it all ends. (7/10)