I had a hard time getting around this movie right after seeing it. Something was not quite right, something disturbing. But after sleeping on it I think I have it figured out.
I know people read these to find out if a movie is good or not. It is good. It's an effective piece of art which has an interesting and original inner voice. It's thought-provoking.
But it doesn't leave you with anything to hang your hat on. You are not going to come out relating to the characters or situations. Not right away, not until you've digested the whole and figured out what part of it is universal to you.
*spoilers galore*
The key to Marco & Benigno's relationship is that they both don't listen to women - the title of the film can throw you off this trail a bit. They don't listen - and they don't want to.
Marco didn't want to know that this woman wasn't really in love with him. After all, he swept in when she was on the rebound and he "knows desperate women" by his own admission - or does he not really know them, rather, always swoops in like this? That would explain a lot - he has a hard time with normal relationships. He likes a girl on the rebound, or desperate for some reason. He doesn't really want to cope with real love, he just want s his own thing. -
He is selfish. This is not the way one loves. Love is something that is not for you, it is for the one you love.
Does he then gain anything from his friend's problems & suicide? I don't know. But I think in the end that he doesn't. Maybe this is why it is a disturbing film. He is back to crying at this experimental dance. He has already gone back to traveling around on his own instead of leading a life with people. He is back to getting involved with a girl who has problems (girl coming out of a coma counts, I'd say).
Meanwhile, his friend Benigno is the ultimate in "doesn't listen." He idolized this girl from afar, then found the perfect relationship when she couldn't communicate at all. But she was (communicating) - she was saying *nothing* at all, and he was projecting for her. He knew that, in fact, but that didn't matter to him.
Finally, he rapes her under the pretense that she has actually been communicating with him, in the way he wants. Rape is, of course, the ultimate in selfish love. It is an act which defines how "selfish love" is really an oxymoron - it's not love at all. He feels his half of the relationship is enough to make a whole. This is the ultimate loner, I'd say. And we know he never learns, never grows, nothing. He ends up committing suicide. The ultimate in despair.
One might say that Benigno was "good" b/c he had cared for this girl all this time. But that is not what "good" is. He is not caring for her out of dedication to his profession. He is not caring for her out of love. He is doing it b/c he needs it for his own selfish purposes - that is how he feels love. I suppose b/c that is what he had with his mother.
So there is a reason, seemingly - his mother. That would be too easy, though, to just let him slide b/c of that. And to do so, one would have to project something not in the film - we never actually know what the relationship was with this mother.
So then, it's not black & white, but still definite, I think, all reasons aside, in that he is not "good." In fact, I think he has severe problems.
And Marco relates to him...
Perhaps it's hopeful in that ultimately it lays the blame on the characters themselves and doesn't say this is some bigger, unresolveable problem. But from what I saw, it's still pretty depressing.
I know people read these to find out if a movie is good or not. It is good. It's an effective piece of art which has an interesting and original inner voice. It's thought-provoking.
But it doesn't leave you with anything to hang your hat on. You are not going to come out relating to the characters or situations. Not right away, not until you've digested the whole and figured out what part of it is universal to you.
*spoilers galore*
The key to Marco & Benigno's relationship is that they both don't listen to women - the title of the film can throw you off this trail a bit. They don't listen - and they don't want to.
Marco didn't want to know that this woman wasn't really in love with him. After all, he swept in when she was on the rebound and he "knows desperate women" by his own admission - or does he not really know them, rather, always swoops in like this? That would explain a lot - he has a hard time with normal relationships. He likes a girl on the rebound, or desperate for some reason. He doesn't really want to cope with real love, he just want s his own thing. -
He is selfish. This is not the way one loves. Love is something that is not for you, it is for the one you love.
Does he then gain anything from his friend's problems & suicide? I don't know. But I think in the end that he doesn't. Maybe this is why it is a disturbing film. He is back to crying at this experimental dance. He has already gone back to traveling around on his own instead of leading a life with people. He is back to getting involved with a girl who has problems (girl coming out of a coma counts, I'd say).
Meanwhile, his friend Benigno is the ultimate in "doesn't listen." He idolized this girl from afar, then found the perfect relationship when she couldn't communicate at all. But she was (communicating) - she was saying *nothing* at all, and he was projecting for her. He knew that, in fact, but that didn't matter to him.
Finally, he rapes her under the pretense that she has actually been communicating with him, in the way he wants. Rape is, of course, the ultimate in selfish love. It is an act which defines how "selfish love" is really an oxymoron - it's not love at all. He feels his half of the relationship is enough to make a whole. This is the ultimate loner, I'd say. And we know he never learns, never grows, nothing. He ends up committing suicide. The ultimate in despair.
One might say that Benigno was "good" b/c he had cared for this girl all this time. But that is not what "good" is. He is not caring for her out of dedication to his profession. He is not caring for her out of love. He is doing it b/c he needs it for his own selfish purposes - that is how he feels love. I suppose b/c that is what he had with his mother.
So there is a reason, seemingly - his mother. That would be too easy, though, to just let him slide b/c of that. And to do so, one would have to project something not in the film - we never actually know what the relationship was with this mother.
So then, it's not black & white, but still definite, I think, all reasons aside, in that he is not "good." In fact, I think he has severe problems.
And Marco relates to him...
Perhaps it's hopeful in that ultimately it lays the blame on the characters themselves and doesn't say this is some bigger, unresolveable problem. But from what I saw, it's still pretty depressing.