Marco Berger

Taekwondo (2016)

André Crous

Two Taekwondo training partners who know little about each other spend a few days in the company of seven other men. Are we just imagining it, or is there a spark between them?

TaekwondoArgentina
3.5*

Directors:
Marco Berger
Martín Farina
Screenwriter:
Marco Berger
Director of Photography:
Martín Farina

Running time: 105 minutes

If you’re a gay man, you’ve often wondered whether a particular guy is gay. When you finally find out he is, you tell yourself, “It was glaringly obvious all along!” Perhaps you even pat yourself on the back and praise your own “gaydar”. And when you find out he’s not, it suddenly seems just as self-evident. While we’re wondering, the possibilities often appear to be both endless and contradictory.

Marco Berger specialises in warm, friendly tension resolved at the very last moment thanks to the briefest of happy ends. His films focus almost exclusively on unspoken desire capped by a tender moment of contact that makes us feel like everything will work out in the end if we are just patient enough for it to happen.

The Argentine filmmaker’s latest feature, co-directed by Martín Farina (whose homoerotically charged football documentary, Fulboy, Berger co-edited), is titled Taekwondo and features a real ensemble cast for the first time in his career. The entire film is set in a large house in the countryside, where a group of nine strapping young men – all friends of the affable, curly-haired Fernando (Lucas Papa) – are hanging out. It’s December, and summer is already in full swing. This means a lot of lazing around, primarily in and around the swimming pool, and mostly in very skimpy clothes. Sometimes, none at all.

In the charmingly verdant, near-symmetrical opening shot, we see a newcomer arrive at the house. Germán (Gabriel Epstein) is an acquaintance of Fernando’s from their Taekwondo class and is joining the gang for a relaxing, fun time. He is the odd one out from the beginning because the eight have known each other for a long time. Fortunately for him, Fernando makes a point of finding him wherever he is, speaking to him, sitting next to him in larger groups, lying next to him by the pool and even sleeping in the same room. We quickly learn that Germán is gay, but what is the deal with Fernando?

This is a question that lingers for most of the film’s 105-minute running time. It always hangs in the background but is pushed centre stage every time Germán peeks at him (we know why), or he glances at Germán (does it mean what we think it means?), or the scantily clad men around them playfully call each other “cocksuckers”. The film also raises a few related but more general questions – ones that almost anyone who is gay has asked themselves at one time or another: What does it mean when someone looks at me? When does a look become a stare? And how do I distinguish between a stare born out of simple curiosity and a stare that is meaningful?

Taekwondo is divided into three interwoven sections: the delicate, silent dance between Germán and Fernando; the many conversations between Diego, Fede (nicknamed “Fatso”), Juan, Lucho, Maxi and Tomás, the majority of which concerns sex with women; and the questionable intentions of Leo, who stalks around in an attempt to get Fernando’s attention.

The film’s major flaw is its handling of the many speaking parts. The second section mentioned above, which consists of loose discussions between various speakers, is particularly problematic because, beyond Germán and Fernando, the characters are simply not memorable or well-defined. In fact, it will likely take a second viewing to recognise all the men at the house.

Taekwondo does go overboard by pelting us with close-ups of crotches both covered and exposed, even when the point of view is not connected to anyone in particular. This kind of ogling by the camera, while not exactly comparable to the gross gaze that Abdellatif Kechiche deployed in Blue is the Warmest Colour, is pointless and voids whatever sensuality the shots may have generated if used more discreetly.

If the two directors had utilised the camera as a substitute for specific characters’ point of view, the film would have been infinitely more engaging and immersive. But the gratuitous abundance of full-frontal close-ups simply leads nowhere and becomes annoyingly repetitive. By contrast, scenes like the one in which all nine of the men squeeze into the sauna drip with sensuality precisely because there are no full-frontals. 

All the while, we are grateful that someone as captivating as Epstein was cast to play Germán and that he portrays him as someone who is careful but never pitiful. Germán has no problem being gay, but because he is unfamiliar with the other guys’ sentiments about homosexuality, he doesn’t bring it up. The film’s two comical highlights are the scenes in which he shares his feelings with another gay friend – once over the phone and another time in person.

Berger has always been at his most effective when his stories are simple and focused on two main characters. This was the case in arguably his two best films to date: Plan B and Hawaii. Taekwondo loses time by presenting non-essential storylines and characters. It also negates some of Berger’s trademark sunshine by including a marginal character clearly uncomfortable with his own sexuality. His presence taints the otherwise laid-back, albeit sometimes sexually tense, atmosphere.

But it is fun to see how Berger and Farina work to tease us to breaking point with the promise of something happening. Viewers will have to bide their time, but those who know Berger’s films (this is Farina’s first fiction film behind the camera) can also rest assured that he always delivers in the end.

It might appear that time is standing still in this idyllic summer film, but the small steps that Germán and Fernando take always make us smile out of pure exhilaration for them to realise and benefit from something that is clear to almost everyone else. Taekwondo would have been served better by having fewer in-your-face crotch shots and more clear-cut characters, but the easygoing ambience and the playful camaraderie make for an environment the viewer can easily get used to.

Look out for Marco Berger making a cameo appearance halfway through the film as an anonymous character whose companion is hit in the head with a tennis ball.

Butterfly (2015)

André Crous

Argentinian filmmaker Marco Berger takes on parallel realities to show characters rising above circumstances and becoming themselves, time and time again.

Mariposa

Argentina
3.5*

Director:
Marco Berger
Screenwriter:
Marco Berger
Director of Photography:
Tomás Perez Silva

Running time: 103 minutes

Original title: Mariposa

The worlds of Marco Berger’s films are almost always happy (though never uncomplicated) places. Going against the tradition of using (anguish about) sexuality as a way to amplify the drama, this Argentine director has consistently — with a single exception, Ausente — presented his viewers with stories where small steps lead the way to happiness. His films have no villains, although a case can certainly be made that the teenager in Ausente is the most (and only) unpleasant character in his œuvre. Instead, he focuses on the gentle tension that exists when people like each other, and this tension is resolved either through satisfaction or through the departure of one of the parties. His bright, optimistic world view is reflected in the atmosphere of his films, filled with sunshine and greenery.

While Berger almost exclusively examined same-sex attraction in his previous films, his fourth and latest feature, Butterfly (Mariposa), which premiered in the Panorama section at the 2015 Berlinale, places heterosexual attraction in the foreground. However, his affinity for one of the central tenets of gay rights is unmistakable: The major theme of the film is that no matter our circumstances, we will fall in love with the person with whom we were meant to fall in love. In the end, it’s always nature, not nurture.

In the very first scene, a butterfly sits perfectly still, and a young mother leaves her infant daughter by the side of the road. A few moments later, we see the mother with her daughter again, just as moments earlier, but she notices the butterfly gently flapping its wings and makes the decision to hang on to her child. The consequences of this single moment will be evident throughout the rest of the film, as we see the effects of her two decisions.

The idea of parallel worlds has been done before on film, with examples ranging from Sliding Doors to Run Lola Run (Lola rennt), but Butterfly, shot in Buenos Aires and in and around Tandil, is much more subtle and much less pure spectacle than those two films were. It is to Berger’s credit that the sexual tension at the heart of his story — between a boy, Germán (Javier de Pietro), and his adopted sister, Romina (Ailín Salas) — is handled with tenderness, understanding, and absolutely no sentimentality or exploitation, and his overarching message is a powerful one. At times, the symbolism of the butterfly does become needlessly belaboured, as the main character inexplicably buys a kind of butterfly snow globe for no apparent reason other than to suggest to us that he is being moved by some force he does not understand: his universal self across all worlds.

In the one story, the bearded, curly-haired Germán, an only child, falls in love with Romina, the girl with the dyed blond hair and the dark roots whom he meets when his parents crash into her in the woods. In the other, the clean-shaven, bespectacled Germán grows closer and closer to his adopted sister, Romina the brunette, whom his parents had found in the woods as a baby, until they both realise they can no longer resist the temptation to be with each other. In the meantime, their relationship to each other in both worlds affect those around them, but only temporarily, as everyone eventually gravitates towards the same people in either story.

One of these people is the handsome Bruno (Julian Infantino), Germán’s friend in the one world and Romina’s boyfriend in the other, who physically and awkwardly gravitates towards Germán. It is obvious Bruno is not particularly attracted to Germán, but there is a conspicuous yearning that — as Berger has shown in nearly all of his films, including his first short film, The Watch, by letting shots of underwear speak volumes — manifests itself as a hilarious, throbbing erection.

Despite Bruno being more or less closeted in not one but two worlds, we always sense that happiness is just around the corner, and when the moment arrived, I started smiling like a giddy teenager. Berger makes us fall in love with his characters because they are thoroughly likeable and their world is one that we want to be a part of. This world seems entirely credible, and while the characters may stumble here and there, most of their desires are ultimately fulfilled.

Berger has stated that the origin of Butterfly was partly personal, as it relates to the time after he was rejected by two film schools in Norway, and he had to choose between giving up on his dream and following his heart. Whether he would have ended up making films regardless is, of course, an open question, but audiences around the world will be enthusiastically applauding his decision to make movies that inspire them by creating wholly plausible worlds we want to believe can be ours, too.

He says he also drew inspiration from the 1998 film Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Los amantes del círculo polar), about two step-siblings falling in love in a world that is so elusive it slips through our fingers at the end.

The separation between the worlds of Butterfly is at once very clear and not always obvious. The characters differ with regard to the colour and the length of their hair or their facial hair, and Berger also uses red and blue in various ways to distinguish the worlds from each other. However, the scenes are often cut in such a way that they start in one world and abruptly change to another when there is a sudden cut. This strategy is mostly successful but sometimes seems unnecessarily overused. The continuous back-and-forth between the two worlds and their stories does require the viewer to pay attention throughout, but this intense scrutiny and comparison pay off handsomely because we recognise that, despite all the obstacles, our characters are slowly moving in the direction that will make them the most happy.

With Butterfly, Berger has affirmed his view of the world as a place we should be optimistic about. The screenplay, built on small moments rather than big ideas, is intelligent but never seeks to outsmart the viewer. Unfortunately, the fast-paced alternation between the two worlds and the focus on two couples instead of one do slightly hinder the depth to which the characters are revealed (Hawaii and Plan B were much more effective in this regard), but even within these constraints, Berger does elicit a great deal of feeling from his situations. His characters have their reasons for acting the way they do, and while some will point to the broken heart of at least one girl in one world, and of another in the other, as evidence that people sometimes do get hurt, the film leaves us with the message that going for what we want often leads to the best possible world. After all, without those two broken hearts, the future may have had exponentially greater heartache in store.

Hawaii (2013)

André Crous

Hawaii poster2Argentina
4*

Director:
Marco Berger
Screenwriter:
Marco Berger
Director of Photography:
Tomás Perez Silva

Running time: 101 minutes

It’s difficult to imagine Marco Berger making a winter movie.

From the beautiful sunset of one of his first short films, The Watch, to the evergreen bubble of lush gardens in rural Argentina that is a constant metaphor for the budding relationship in Hawaii, his films have always been optimistic about the possibility of finding love, or at least of finding someone. That possibility, however, is not without its ups and downs, and one should never make assumptions about anyone else’s interests or intentions.

Hawaii is a refreshing return to form for Berger after his tense and visually frigid second film, Ausente. Having secured more than $22,000 through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter (disclaimer: I also made a contribution of less than one-half of 1 percent), Marco Berger and co-producer Pedro Irusta set about shooting a film they had initially planned to make with twice the budget. The product is surprisingly well-crafted, and perhaps thanks to Berger’s experience on the short-film anthology Sexual Tension: Volatile, he appears to be in complete control even as he tells a story that one expects to take up much less time.

The world of the film almost exclusively belongs to its two central characters, Eugenio and Martin, played by Manuel Vignau and the curious, wide-eyed Uruguayan actor Mateo Chiarino, respectively. With the exception of three brief scenes, they provide the only interaction of the film, and our attention is focused on the flowering of their relationship alone over the course of a few weeks during the summer.

Martin is homeless. He sleeps in the bushes under a small blanket and goes from house to house during the day asking for work. Eventually, he arrives at the gates of a large property, where the slightly bearded Eugenio, two or three years his senior, tells him the house actually belongs to his uncle, but that he needs help around the house. As Martin is about to leave, he realises he knows Eugenio from many years ago, when he spent time in the area before moving to Uruguay.

The rest of the film looks at the gradual shedding of secrets and the intimacy of shared childhood memories, which bring the two closer together.

Hawaii’s simplicity is only illusory, but the questions the viewer has as the action unfolds will be answered – or, at the very least, framed through the prism of humanity – by the end of the film in a way that ties together the loose ends. Berger expertly manages his characters’ secrets, some of which we know from the beginning, and some of which he only lets us in on over time. Almost surprisingly, homosexuality is not really one of these secrets, although it is referenced obliquely, but Berger knows that we would assume these two characters are keeping that secret, and in the process we may see the forest for the trees – in other words, we may miss the more important story, which is the growth of a relationship outside the limits imposed by supposedly keeping sexuality a secret.

Such optimism also illuminated Berger’s début feature, Plan B, in which two straight men realise they have feelings for each other. That is not to say Hawaii is devoid of tension: After a major revelation, we can feel the characters almost unable to speak to each other, and yet we will soon come to realise the source of anxiety is not quite what we think. Berger is not fooling us on purpose as much as he seems to indicate that people have their reasons, and we have to be more patient to fully comprehend them, instead of drawing an all-too-simple conclusion.

His hair styled in a butch cut, Martin at first appears to be a very straightforward role, but over time we recognise the combination of vulnerability and survival that has brought him this far, and he doesn’t want anyone’s pity. He only appears to be slightly naïve, but just because he does not spend his time writing or drawing, like Eugenio, does not mean he is not sensitive.

He, and the viewer, wants questions answered, but he does not blindly rush toward an explanation. Perhaps the viewer is more impatient, trying to figure out what it means when one touches the other lightly on the shoulder, or when Martin puts his hand on Eugenio’s chest to feel his heartbeat. Is this a game? And do they both know what they are feeling themselves, or are they in the dark about their own emotions? How close can the one allow himself to be to the other without causing suspicion?

These questions are central to the experience, and it is impressive to see Berger pose them to us without seeming to tease us, and yet, at the same time, he keeps our attention on the development of the story and of these characters.

Later, when Martin picks up one of Eugenio’s T-shirts and puts it on, we wonder whether he wants to be more like Eugenio or if there is something more intimate to this gesture. Berger keeps us in the dark, but it is not to create some false kind of tension. It is the most natural scene in the world, and yet he has imbued it with an ambiguity that is audacious and spot-on.

The first 15 minutes of the film, almost entirely without dialogue, seem to belong to a different film altogether, but far from being an artistic flaw, we eventually there is some meaning behind this, too: These 15 minutes are used to sketch a world where Eugenio and Martin have not yet met each other as adults. Once they do, it is as if the world they inhabit also changes, and the result is a film that we can savour.

Hawaii contains clever compositions that do not attract attention but demand more attention because they are deceptively simple. One example is when Martin looks at himself in the mirror in Eugenio’s room. A few minutes later, Berger only needs to show us Eugenio looking in front of him to realise he is actually looking at a reflection of Martin behind him, changing his clothes, and no reverse shot is even necessary.

That kind of oblique look, of knowing what the viewer sees and what the character sees without showing him looking, is missing, unfortunately, from a later scene next to the river. That scene in Brokeback Mountain when Jake Gyllenhaal is peeling a potato and refuses to look behind him at Heath Ledger changing his clothes was awe-inspiring because we knew exactly what was going on in Gyllenhaal’s character’s mind. The scene next to the river in Hawaii eschews this subtlety in favour of more explicit leering.

The rest of the film contains a great deal of contemplation, and while we often don’t know what goes through the characters’ minds, we have some idea. An early shot shows Martin filling a water bottle at a tap before the camera focuses on his crotch. It is a subtle hint at the frustration he keeps hidden, but this frustration helps us understand his character rather than the story, which is a good thing, even though it does make Eugenio rather difficult to decipher.

Then again, perhaps that is life. This is the world occupied by the two main characters, and by them alone, and yet we don’t feel like voyeurs but rather like explorers (incidentally, the film cites Jules Verne from time to time) who share some of the joy of their experience.

Just like Plan B, Berger’s Hawaii is a film that will make its many homosexual viewers happy to be gay. It is not political, and it is not about gay guilt or repression or angst about coming out. On the contrary, it shows how wonderful it is to be alive and be with someone who is comfortable around you, and it treats the possibility of finding love as a reality.

A Last Wish (2008)

André Crous

Una ultima voluntadArgentina
3.5*

Director:
Marco Berger
Screenwriter:
Marco Berger
Director of Photography:
Tomás Perez Silva

Running time: 9 minutes

Original title: Una última voluntad

Argentine filmmaker Marco Berger’s very first short film has as much ambiguity as anything he would make in the future, and unlike so-called gay cinema in general, but exactly like the rest of Berger’s oeuvre, this film lacks any kind of overt anguish over sexuality.

In A Last Wish (Una última voluntad), set deep in a forest at an unknown time in history, we find a soldier, already captured by a foreign army, about to be executed by a firing squad. He is granted one last wish, and we learn this wish has to be executed as a final courtesy to a man who is about to die, as long as it is possible, takes less than five minutes to complete, and does not nullify his imminent execution.

The final wish of the man, credited as The Condemned (Manuel Vignau), who is never named, is very simple: a kiss. Besides the unusual request that he makes (we surmise it is unusual because the general doesn’t understand how such a request can be granted if the company consists exclusively of men), he also has a sense of mystery about him because we never hear him speak. He conveys his wish to an officer in charge, who shares it with the others.

Initially, there is some confusion, but when a thorough examination of the manual reveals there is no legal reason to deny the request, a solution must be found. Who will kiss him? The officers decide to draw straws, or matches, to be more precise, and thereby determine the other participant in the execution of this act, credited as The Chosen Soldier (played by Lucas Ferraro, who also starred opposite Vignau in Berger’s début feature, Plan B).

The short is barely 7 minutes long, and its cinematography does not exactly elicit enthusiasm, but there is a moment towards the end, once the man has been executed, that we get a pensive 360-degree pan that reveals the true purpose of the film: It is not about what happens (whether the prisoner is executed or not, whether he is kissed or not) what about the effect these events, and in particular that kiss, have on the officer who likely did not expect to share such an intimate moment with his enemy that day.

The 360-degree pan reveals The Condemned and The Chosen Soldier, both entirely still, and the relationship between the two in this scene is striking on Ferraro’s face. He doesn’t quite know what to make of everything that has happened, and neither do we, but we know that one instant had an effect on him and that sometimes love can hit you harder than violence.

Berger’s film is about a moment of discovery, not of sexuality but of intimacy, and although the setup is terribly contrived and the visuals are mostly uninteresting, his story as a framing device for a powerful moment that is sure to linger with you.

The Watch (2008)

André Crous

El reloj / The WatchArgentina
3.5*

Director:
Marco Berger
Screenwriter:
Marco Berger
Director of Photography:
Tomás Perez Silva

Running time: 14 minutes

Original title: El reloj

Argentinian director Marco Berger’s very first short film has so much ambiguous sexual tension it is surprising the film wasn’t remade and included in the anthology film in which he participated with fellow countryman Marcelo Mónaco, Sexual Tension: Volatile.

Two teenagers meet on a curb at sunset, waiting for a bus that never comes. It’s a wonderful image that sums up the rest of the film very well. The one, Juan Pablo, is talkative and very sure of himself, looking straight at the other, so much so he makes the already-shy boy even more nervous. Juan Pablo says he’s sure they know each other from school, but they don’t. Then he says the other boy is called Maxi, but he’s not. He’s Javier.

In a flashback, it is revealed they went on a double date once, but only for the sake of their former girlfriends, and they didn’t really talk to each other.

Juan Pablo invites Javier home, where Javier meets Juan Pablo’s cousin (this moment is repeated in Berger’s own El Primo episode in Sexual Tension: Volatile, in a way that shows how much the director’s sense for visual tension has developed in four years). The boys watch television before going to bed, where they lie next to each other in their underwear without doing anything.

In the end, there is no big spark or moment of realisation, but there are short glances, and it seems obvious the boys are curious, even if not necessarily in each other.

Although the cast is small, the action minimal and the locations few, the film is a treat, as we get suggestions of depth in these characters whose intentions are elusive without they themselves being distant or unreadable. The chatty Juan Pablo, in particular, played by Nahuel Viale,  is a very interesting figure as he tries his best to attract the handsome but timid Javier without really knowing what all of this is leading to. Every time he suggests they do something (go home with him, have something to drink, go to bed), Javier simply goes along. That says as much about Javier’s intentions or curiosities as it does about Juan Pablo’s interest.

The short interaction has no real meat to it, and the appearance of Juan Pablo’s mother feels out of place because it is so brief, but the film doesn’t leave us unsatisfied. It may not be transparent, and even the meaning of its title is not particularly self-evident (nor is that of the hot-air balloon in the opening shot), but the hesitation of making a fantasy a reality and the implicit but silent acquiescence that is visible to the viewer but not so obvious to the characters themselves speak to a very human quality that is highly commendable; it also informs nearly all of Berger’s subsequent films.

Sexual Tension: Volatile (2012)

André Crous

Tension sexual volatilArgentina
2.5*

Directors:
Marcelo Mónaco
Marco Berger
Screenwriters:
Marcelo Mónaco
Marco Berger
Director of Photography:
Tomás Perez Silva

Running time: 100 minutes

Original title: Tensión sexual, Volumen 1: Volátil 

Didier Costet, who co-produced Beauty, a 2011 film in which a middle-aged man from rural South Africa stalks one of his daughter’s male friends, is also the production muscle behind this anthology of short films about gay attraction. Only two directors took part in this project, which accounts for the generally homogeneous tone, one that is usually missing from anthology films with a larger variety of voices and visions.

The two directors are Marcelo Mónaco, who has helmed raunchy films from the sexually explicit Porno de autor to the gay porn film Cum-eating Rancheros; and the more commercially oriented Marco Berger, whose films, like Ausente, have dealt much more with tension and lust than sexual release.

While Berger has stated in the past that he is often conscious of making gay films for a straight audience, Sexual Tension: Volatile is very clearly targeted at a gay audience, as the tension is not really between the characters but rather from the side of the viewer, who wonders whether there will be a spark between two characters, even when such a turn of events would be narratively implausible.

The anthology consists of six short films:

Ari, by Mónaco
El Primo (The Cousin), by Berger
El Otro (The Other), by Mónaco
Los Brazos Rotos (Broken Arms), by Berger
Amor (Love), by Mónaco
Entrenamiento (Workout), by Berger

Each is around 15 minutes in length, and the film ends on a very playful note, just as the tension is about to be broken.

The opening short is very silly, with a young twink who goes to get his first tattoo falling in lust with tattoo artist Ari and fantasising about him. The tattoo parlour looks like little more than an empty studio, and the fantasies are nothing to get excited about.

It is only by the time of Berger’s short film, El Primo, that we can sense it might be worth our time to watch the entire compilation; in fact, this may be the best film of the entire bunch, although Mónaco’s Amor comes a close second. The object of affection is a boy who never speaks (something that can work wonders in a film of this length), but whose crotch outline seems to be everywhere the lustful visitor (Javier De Pietro, who has matured physically and professionally since his stint in Berger’s Ausente) casts his eyes. Berger’s films are often interested in crotch outlines – in swim trunks (“Platero” in another anthology film, Cinco; and Ausente) or in underwear (El reloj; Plan B) – and have become a trope in his canon. De Pietro, who sometimes pushes his glasses back up his nose to see better, conveys some nervous energy, and in this case, his expressionless face helps the film a great deal by allowing him to act as a screen for our projection of anxiety.

El Otro demonstrates that Mónaco can produce some gorgeous moments, as two best friends Kevin and Tony talk about their sexual escapades. Kevin is complaining that he isn’t getting sex from his current girlfriend, but Tony, having just seen what a big member his friend is sporting, wants to help him out by showing him positions and suggesting phrases to help things along. The catch is, Kevin has to try it on Tony. The actions are not always credible, and neither is the blocking, but there are two long takes, both two-shots, that look beautiful and show directorial promise, even though the camera more often objectifies the two boys completely by focusing on their crotches throughout.

Los Brazos Rotos is a bizarre inclusion and seems too artistic – even for a gay audience! There is no dialogue, although only the arms of the main character are (more or less) supposed to be broken, and not the soundtrack. Berger shows his cinematographic range, as he did in El Primo, by playing more with shadows and darkness than co-director Mónaco; however, shots like the one in the bathroom, which shows a man being washed by his male nurse while we look at it in a mirror, with a bottle of shampoo strategically placed to obscure our view of his private parts, seems almost amateurishly titillating. We only realise the intimacy of the situation afterwards, when the nurse does, but while it is going on, you may just want to hit the fast-forward button.

Amor certainly has the best-looking pair in the entire film. At a bed and breakfast in the countryside, a youthful man and girlfriend are escaping dreary city life by sleeping in late. When she is on the phone to her mother, she asks the manager of the place to wake up her sleepy boyfriend, but in the bedroom, the two accidentally touch each other, without being repulsed by it. It is a beautiful, innocent moment that creates tension and questions, none of which is properly resolved, but these issues don’t seem at all misplaced.

Berger’s final film, Entrenamiento, sees two men very interested in building muscle spend all their time together. At first, we may think they are boyfriends, but they soon start sexting with girls who demand to see more and more skin. When they take pictures of each other, from up close, we question their sexuality even more. However, as in all the other films, no one is ever shown to be hard, so perhaps the situations are as sexless as they seem, and it is only the viewer whose tension the title refers to.

This is the first volume in what is supposed to be a series, and a second collection of shorts, titled “Violetas”, about attraction between women, was released early in 2013. What the title’s “volatile” means, in this case, is wholly unclear. All the crotch shots are probably meant to entice us, but that would make this a kind of porn, without the sex, and that’s not really any fun, is it?

Ausente (2011)

André Crous

Argentina
3*

Director:
Marco Berger
Screenwriter:
Marco Berger
Director of Photography:
Tomás Perez Silva

Running time: 87 minutes

It’s appropriate that a film about a swimming teacher at a high school and one of his students should dive right into the action. Right at the start, 16-year-old Martin Blanco (Javier De Pietro) complains to his teacher of having something in his eye. They go to the emergency room together, but nothing is found. When they return, Martin realises his bag and cell phone are still with his friend, at whose house he was going to spend the night. After going back and forth between many places, it seems there is no other way but for the boy to spend the night at the teacher’s flat. Nothing happens between the two of them, but there is a lot of tension.

The problem is that the tension is mostly from the side of the viewer, and the soundtrack also does its part to convey to us the fact that something ominous is hiding in the shadows. However, neither the teacher, Sebastián Armas (Carlos Echevarría), nor Martin shows any kind of anxiety, despite the admittedly awkward situation of a student spending the night at his teacher’s flat. They don’t really speak to each other, and before long, Martin passes out on the couch.

One of the first scenes shows Martin looking at fellow teammates. He is a bit of a starer – you know the type: says he is straight, but all too often he is caught blatantly staring at another guy – but the problem with the film is that he is too ill-defined: He is neither aggressively pursuing the teacher, nor is he awkward because of some sexual insecurity. Given the fact we dive right in, there is no initial setup, which means Martin is not given much context. Neither is Sebastián, really, but that matters less because the presence of Echevarría makes up for it. In fact, Echevarría’s face, almost entirely expressionless, works extremely well in the way of a Bressonian model, as we project our fears onto him.

There is great potential for Martin’s character to involve us. This is a high-school boy – obviously not openly homosexual – who either has a crush on his teacher or is on a power trip to explore what might happen, but we don’t know how confident he is, or even what his own agenda is. He seems self-assured (though quite naïve when it comes to a certain girl’s interest in him), but when he apologises for his behaviour, can he be trusted? Perhaps director Marco Berger (who made another poignant drama about two straight men slowly discovering their interest in each other, Plan B) wanted to keep us in the dark, but then why isn’t more of the film shot from the teacher’s point of view? The constant shifting of perspective from one character to the other only gives the illusion of balance, while it clearly isn’t interested in illuminating us.

Sebastián is dating a very annoying woman, Mariana, who wants to spend time with him but doesn’t want them to discuss any of their problems. In one scene where we think there might be a way for Sebastián to open up and share some of his fears, she quickly tells him to shoosh and him not standing up to her not only makes the drama more tense (a good thing) but also makes him a character with fewer options for action and self-actualisation (a bad thing).

Some more details on Martin’s life at home (we don’t see his parents, except for his mother once in a hallway from the waist down) would have helped us get inside his head, as this side of his life – at least, if he is to be believed – played an important role in his spending the night at his teacher’s place. We see a James Dean poster on his wall, and the already mentioned peek at his swimming mates in one of the film’s opening scenes immediately positions him as closeted or questioning, but there is little else to develop this impression.

Berger is more of a storyteller than a flamboyant director, but one scene at the heart of the film is staged particularly impressively. It has to do with Sebastián’s recognition of Martin’s perhaps not entirely truthful behaviour, as he listens to one side while some of his colleagues discuss the revelation that Martin’s parents arrived at school looking for him the day after the night before. The scene is shot in a single take, now focusing on the teacher telling the story, then focusing on Sebastián who tries not to look too interested in the story, though it concerns him directly. It is a wonderful shot, timed just right without ever seeming contrived or stylised. On the other hand, the film suffers, especially at the beginning, of a soundtrack that is overly dramatic and overpowers the events it seeks to portray as suspenseful.

What we end up with is a film with good intentions, very cleverly devised (especially with Carlos Echevarría in the lead) and boasting a very unexpected but wonderfully touching conclusion. However, Berger could have delved deeper into the characters, in particular the character of Martin, to shape and inform our perspective of events. In a bit of commentary by the filmmaker, perhaps, we see Sebastián reading Kundera’s Laughable Loves, and that title might have served the film itself equally well. It wants to be a psychological thriller but ends up being a film you have a crush on for a few days before you move on to something more substantial.