The first feature release from rising Mexican writer/director Julián Hernández is a story of drifting youth, a search for love with the feel of a gay hustler’s notebook, even if our lead neither asks nor accepts payment, let alone keeps a journal or even contact numbers. Instead, the grand gesture of disappointment, tossing away cash or phone numbers as proffered. (A disdain only seen from cash-strapped romantics on the screen.) Hernández has likely made something of a study of ‘queer cinema’ classics like Pasolini’s ACCATONE/’61 & Gus Van Sant’s MALA NOCHE/’86, but the best things in here, along with Diego Arizmendi’s smoothly handsome monochrome lensing, are a few casual non-sexual encounters at a cafeteria or street shopping for a hard-to-find pop vinyl record. Then it’s back to moody, near silent glowerings and fatalistic narcissism while waiting for the next disappointing encounter.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: As mentioned above, ACCATONE (with the loathsome Pasolini much helped by asst Bernardo Bertolucci) and MALA NOCHE.
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