Das Beben

Watch if you like Latin American soap operas otherwise avoid it.

Guatemala City is much like other prominent cities in South America: rich in diversity and burgeoning business. In the matter of gay men, writer/director Jayro Bustamante's Tremors depicts an Antigua state of mind: a family man who professes love for another man is in a world of hurt for his family and himself. Nothing is in the least progressive.

Such a narrow but not uncommon reaction by a local culture as offers a candid representation of the troubles gays can experience in a heavily Catholic and conservative small world. So authentic are the reactions, the film could have just as well have been about the effects of divorce on a community.

Pablo (Juan Pablo Olyslauer) comes home to a phalanx of family ready to condemn his choice of male love over his current heterosexual family life. Olyslauer's underplayed performance makes Pablo an audience-identifier of a person coming to terms with prejudice couched in family values.

Being unjustly called a pedophile, in order to separate him permanently from his children, may be the final indignity for a man who deserves not an iota of scorn for a choice not easily made and deeply felt for the grief he has caused his family and friends. It is rare to find such an honest portrayal of the difficulties a decision like his causes for everyone in his life. Without rancor or weeping and screaming from his family, Tremors quietly exposes the blindness of those surrounding him and his own uncertainty that he may have made the wrong decision.

The later scenes of his society's helping him becoming normal through therapy are the real pain of Tremors because his heart is not in the transformation, but he is willing to sacrifice his own happiness to be with his family.

Nowhere in contemporary cinema will you get as uncompromising a view of the unjust heartache attendant on choosing a societal imperative over one's happiness.

A wife of unspeakable beauty, two adorable children, a flourishing professional activity, ... It's a wonderful life for Pablo, until the discovery of an extramarital and homosexual affair. In this Guatemalan microcosm, an extramarital affair is already inadmissible in itself. And homosexual?!? This is definitely the trigger of a profoundly repressive modus operandi. Pablo is then high and dry, in the depths of the abyss, as a pawn at the mercy of a coercive environment, wedged between two concomitant loves: with his family and with Francisco. Even if the first twenty minutes are a bit messy, the cast is excellent and the photography is neat.

I watched this expecting a movie about a man coming out late in life, disrupting his marriage, then watching the struggle and growth.

Instead what I got was a very dark movie that felt both anti-gay and anti-religious, and woefully depressing as it goes on to just show how everything and everyone (including his own parents) aims to destroy this man's life.

Set in Guatemala, an area I am unfamiliar with socially, it shows us how he is harshly, and uncomfortably, punished at work, with family, at church, socially, legally, and most disturbing, even medically. I do not know if this is a statement movie about Guatemalan culture, or just the harsh religious factors in the movie, but it makes for a very downbeat result.

The actors do well in their parts, though the chemistry between the two lovers could have been stronger. That was just bad writing and directing. The rest of the film itself is directed well.

The ending was severely depressing, and it just emphasizes that movies work better if there is a glimmer of hope, or even just growth by the end. This was just morbid.

If this is a statement film on Guatamalan culture, this needs to stop now. However, if this is just the writer's idea of good drama, he needs to lighten up. While the subject matter is real, it seems dated because most countries ban the activities shown in the film. However, I repeat, I know nothing about Guatamala.

I wanted to like this more because I loved the star of the movie, but the bad taste it left me with, and didn't expect, made this a downer. I would only recommend this for viewers who want a movie to reflect deeply on, and see the darker side of gay life some people experience.

Some brief nudity, but not highly sexual. Also, scenes of mild torture, deception, and cruelty.

Set in Guatemala, Pablo (Juan Pablo Olyslager) faces a crisis in his life when he reveals to his family that he is gay and will be moving out to be with his male partner Francisco (Mauricio Armas Zebadua).

Pablo's wife Isa (Diane Bathen) gets the courts to issue a restraining order against him so he cannot see his two children. She eventually will threaten him that unless he enrolls in a gay conversion therapy program in their radical religious church, she will take the children to America.

Overall, I thought this drama was solidly acted with realistic characters, as well as ably written and directed by Guatemalan filmmaker Tayro Bustamante.