Rating: B+
Dir: Caye Casas
Stas: David Pareja, Estefanía de los Santos, Josep Maria Riera, Gala Flores
a.k.a. La mesita del comedor
Grave of the Fireflies. Requiem for a Dream. The Girl Next Door. Add this to the list, of movies which are undeniably well-made… and which I have no interest in ever watching again. However, with the others, it’s possible to talk about the subject matter – war, drug addiction, and child abuse respectively. Here? Yeah, I’m going to recommend going in, knowing as little as possible. The wallop this packs will pay a handsome dividend for your ignorance. Is it horror? Marginal, despite a significant amount of blood being spilled. It’s “cringe horror”, where you’re watching things go terribly wrong, with the inevitability of a glacier marching down the side of a mountain.
It begins with an extended scene of new parents Jesús (Pareja) and María (de los Santos) debating whether or not to buy a coffee table (top). Well, arguing would be closer. Certainly, bickering. Jesús prevails, and the table is delivered to their apartment. Some assembly is required. María goes out to get food, because Jesus’s brother Carlos (Riera) and his girlfriend are coming for dinner. Which is where things go wrong for Jesús. Unspeakably wrong. He’s left in an untenable position, and tries to cover things up while he figures out what to do. Which, inevitably, makes things worse. Oh, yeah, and the 13-year-old daughter (Flores) of a neighbour, has a delusional crush on him, and intends to reveal her “truth” to María.
You are watching a man’s life fall apart in just a few hours. Jesús goes from having everything to live for, to having nothing left, and we get to watch it all happen. You can see the toll it takes on him, increasing in every scene, and sometimes from shot to shot. Even the most innocent of conversations, between María and Carlos, is like a relentless series of daggers, inserted directly into his heart. I don’t think I’ve seen a more harrowing and emotionally raw performance, and it’s difficult to watch. You can’t not feel for him, all the more so since, to be honest, María comes off as a bit of a shrew – especially early on. Maybe it’s just the stress of motherhood.
I notice the poster refers to itself as “A cruel film,” borrowing the tag-line used in cult Swedish rape-revenge film, Thriller. It’s equally as appropriate here, because you are watching events and emotions that are not intended for public consumption. The decent, human thing to do would be to stop watching, yet I was continually reeled-in further, wanting to see, with morbid curiosity, how it would all end. Hardly a spoiler to say: not well. There’s one particular group of people who will find the movie especially tough going, though I can’t say more than that. It’s not a group of which I’m a member more than tangentially, and I still found it difficult viewing. I’ll never be able to look at certain pieces of furniture in the same way.