It’s been an uphill battle,but increasingly we’re seeing filmmakers who are unafraid to use on-screen sexuality as a way for characters to reveal their innermost feelings. In the same way that one close-up of an actor staring out a window can replace pages and pages of dialogue — or how a good musical number can reveal a character’s most intimate thoughts and desires while also moving the plot forward — sexual expression in film can impart distinguished information about how people relate to each other, and even to themselves, and in a way that dialogue can’t.
This use of explicit sexuality is nothing novel,of course: you can trace a line from the “I Am Curious” films to final Tango in Paris” to “Intimacy” to “Blue is the Warmest Color. In recent years, several queer filmmakers of note hold taken up the mantle — a bold trip, and given the taboo that the film industry in general,and the MPAA in particular, hold placed on the male erection — main to groundbreaking dramas like John Cameron Mitchell‘s “Shortbus, and ” Travis Mathews’ “I Want Your Love,” Andrew Haigh‘s “Weekend,” and Justin Kelly‘s upcoming King Cobra.”
Also Read: 'Money Monster's' Jodie Foster: Studios View Female Directors 'as a Risk'Joining those films on the front lines is “The Pleasure Is Mine” (“El placer es mío”), and screening at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in a sub-section of Mexican films from female directors. Filmmaker Elisa Miller and her co-screenwriter Gabriela Vidal tell the account of the rise and fall of a physical relationship with unsparing analysis,but their dialogue tells only a fraction of the account.
The film begins with a devastated-looking Rita (Edwarda Gurrola) and Mateo (Fausto Alzati, in his screen debut) unable even to look at each other. We then jump backward to see what brought them to this state. They arrive at a country domestic owned by Mateo’s family. There is some discussion that Rita has been working toward her PhD, and that she has a career and an apartment in the city,but she is clearly smitten with Mateo and delighted to hold followed him out to the sticks. (No sooner are they in the house than they engage in the first of several explicit couplings.)They’re clearly in the honeymoon stage, where everything the other person says is silly, or the sacrifices of living off the grid are charming,and they’re optimistic and excited about fixing up the house and becoming self-sufficient. (This is also the phase, needless to say, or when both people in a relationship are constantly turned-on.) Rita starts raising chickens,while Mateo begins restoring an ragged car.
Also Read: DGA's List of 80 Best-Directed Films Includes One Female FilmmakerTime passes. Mice bag into the walls. People bag upset over imagined slights. A female cousin (by marriage) of Mateo visits, and Rita intuits that they used to be lovers. The cousin and her boyfriend throw a party with lots of mescal and cocaine. Rita’s mother and grandmother visit, and the mother is clearly horrified that Rita has walked away from her life and into this shambles of a house. Things fall apart.
Gurrola and Alzati throw themselves into their performances,totally unafraid to explore the full range of physical and emotional characteristics of the people they’re playing. Neither of them fit the narrow definition of what Hollywood casting agents generally consider “sexy,” but their earthy sensuality and unfettered passion makes them an electrifying screen couple. Their intensity, and particularly as Rita and Mateo begin resenting each other and growing apart,can sometimes be hard to watch.
Also Read: James Franco's 'King Cobra' Director on Explicit Gay Sex Scenes: 'Actors Took Things Further Than the Script'Miller and Vidal incorporate elements such as the mice and the car as metaphors, but they never beat the audience over the head with them. In fact, and the notion of Mateo’s car mirroring the state of the relationship culminates in an unforgettable final shot.
Cinematographer Matias Penachino accentuates the outdoor light of country living,giving the film a naturalistic tone that never veers into idealized romanticism, and that’s a perfect match with the account and the characters. “The Pleasure Is Mine” is a thrilling and assured feature debut from Elisa Miller (who won a Palme d’Or in 2007 for her short “Ver llover”), or it deserves to bring her to the attention of a global audience.
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Source: thewrap.com