Marco Berger has come out with another movie that’s really beautiful and sexy, but it’s definitely not like the ones he usually makes where guys are just full of sexual tension. This one is filmed in black-and-white and looks amazing. The director found a really weird way to show how humans connect and how sexuality works by using a "man as a dog" idea. It’s a pretty strange but interesting movie that makes you think. The story takes place in a world that’s parallel to ours, where two straight couples are on vacation on an island. You see two guys on a boat calling out to someone, and then this naked, lonely, and really good-looking guy shows up. In this dreamy kind of world, the group calls him a "man," but he basically acts like a pet dog. In this setup, the word "men" refers to naked male humans that people own as pets, just like we own dogs. People are scared of stray men just like they're scared of stray dogs. There are also "women" who ...
The film starts with a handsome man Elias, in Atacama desert in Chile’s north, the place where his boyfriend, Sebastien, died a month earlier. Having borrowed his father’s big red truck without asking, he arrives in the pre-dawn darkness still in the suit that he probably wears for work; the job he told Sebastien he couldn’t quit. As he continues his joinery towards south passing Santiago, in bits and very very few flashbacks we see Sebastian and Elias meeting and Sebastian always wanting to travel south with Elias which they couldn't. The book of drawings and collages that Sebastien left Elias lends additional facets to the love story, and it’s the source of the movie’s title. On his road journey, he starts meeting people and had very brief time spend with them and I am not sure what was the point. His encounters on the road are friendly and easy, however laced with his unspoken pain. There is also a hint that Elias was probably not ready to make their relationship public. So when he tells one of his hitchhikers, a girl from Canada, "My boyfriend was also from Canada", he is probably saying that for the first time. The finale of the film is again very open ended.
The one thing that stands out in the film is how gorgeous, even in his tragedy, is our lead actor. Guy playing Elias is smoking hot. You wanna hold him, hug him and just tell him that everything is going to be alright. His eyes have that sadness. And of course, the more than gorgeous landscape of Chile, a country which I must say, I am grateful to have visited a few years back. The problem with the story is that it moves at an excruciatingly slow pace, so much of the film relies upon the stoic expressions of the lead. There are barely any dialogues and long drawn scenes of just pain, anguish and sadness. It's like a grieving man is trying to use road trip and memories of his love with his boyfriend to try to move on and you just follow him and that it. Along the way, Elias meets fellow travelers who help guide him towards the spiritual peace he craves. Some of the encounters are fleeting – a brief conversation with an English backpacker, a surprise meeting with an old friend. Others are more substantial. Elias forms a bond with a stray dog and, for a few hours at least, considers taking it with him. And a Canadian backpacker complements him on his positive energy. A visually beautiful escapist experience and a film about about love, loss, and the grieving process, but seriously, from a story perspective there is literally nothing happening here. Nothing at all. You make your own decision on this one. (4/10)
Comments