Plata quemada

I cannot forget the images that Marcelo Piñeyro conjured up and was able to capture in this film. Everything, the visuals, the literate script, with its sensitive, sensuous, heartbreaking dialogue, the suspense that does not leave you for a single minute, the violent finale that you expect and still keep hoping it will not happen, the exquisite acting of all the major players, it will all stay with me, forever, I am sure. This is film-making of the best kind: contemporary, mature, it relates to reality but transcends it and reaches a perfectly beautiful, artistic, poetic level. This is also a film that treats a gay relationship with total honesty and truth. The characters have their faults, but none of them has to do with their sexuality. They make, indeed, a beautiful pair, and I wish they would have had a chance to be happy together, somewhere, somehow, at the end.

I won't rehash the details again, as so many previous comments have done wonderful jobs on discussing the plot and technical aspects of this film.

I want to commend the leads on their brilliant job. Often when (male) actors are asked to "play gay" you get an overly sexualized relationship - as though they feel the only way to portray the connection between men is through overt lust.

The director and actors here, have instead sought out a more subtle, but infinitely more honest portrayal. Every touch and sidelong glance between Nene and Angel just burns with intimacy. They might have the least on-screen sex, but this is the relationship that you really believe. The actors truly seem comfortable with their bodies, with touching one another, and so whether they are touching or just looking at each other - you can feel that familiarity they share and the intimacy translates beautifully onto the screen. Really an amazing performance of body-language.

My one complaint about "Plate quemada" is the rather shoddy subtitles. I can understand enough of the language to be able to pick up when the sub's aren't direct, or are leaving out dialogue. I HATE that. In a film such as this, when so much of the plot depends on the characters and their relationships, it becomes agonizing not to know exactly what they're saying.

The relationship between Angel and Nene is one of the most passionate, destructive, uncompromising depictions of love in all its blood-soaked sordidness that I've seen in a long time. These are not nice guys. They are wounded and fierce and protective of each other. So complex a relationship needs time to develop on film and director ,Marcelo Piñeyro, isn't afraid to give it to them. We share the sweltering boredom of their exile, the desperation of Nene's love for Angel and Angel's wordless, psychotic attempts to save Nene. These great actors can say it all in a single look. It is one of the most intensely erotic and romantic film I've seen in a very long time.This is a movie that will stay with me.

WOW! Rivetting! The faces of Eduardo Noriega and Lorenzo Sbaraglia fighting and surrendering to their love is pure cinematic art. I left the theatre unable to utter a word. I wanted to revisit their world, no matter how tragic, there was truth in it, twisted, painful truth. PLATA QUEMADA deserves a larger audience. On my second viewing, I forced two friends, who hate subtitles, and are as far removed from the gay world as anyone I know and they loved it. They were seduced by the universe Marcelo Pineyro created for those superb characters to inhabit. More, Mr. Pineyro. More Eduardo and Lorenzo! Bravo!

An excellent movie where everything is beautiful - from the crumbling, claustrophobic backdrops of the antagonists' hiding places, the actors and the background music.

Besides showing an unusual homosexual relationship, the film also questions the relationship between sex, love and violence - even when the main characters turn "straight" violence and death hang in the air, with scenes sex often interspliced with those of death and agony.

More importantly, you can't help but feel sorry - and yet almost envious - for the doomed (and did I mention beautiful?) lovers as they slide towards their inevitable end, just for the incredible passion they have for each other.