El cazador

A closeted gay teen, unwittingly blackmailed with a secretly-recorded sex tape, is pressured into making child pornography as a participant and a recruiter of young boys. "For each kid you bring you'll get around a month of your dad's salary," the blackmailer tells his victim, "It's just a job, you see."

It's an important topic given the enormity of the multi-billion dollar child sex video industry and the lifelong trauma experienced by exploited kids.

"El Cazador," aka "Young Hunter" is not an exposé. Director Marco Berger focuses on one iconic story, that of 15-year-old Ezequiel, caught in a pornographer's trap, and 13-year-old Juan, the target victim who sees in Ezequiel a surrogate for the father he's lost. It's further complicated by Ezequiel's falling for Mono - his first boyfriend, he thinks - but also the dude who set him up.

Ezequiel, played beautifully by Juan Pablo Cestaro, wrestles with his dilemma in silence to a great degree - a confused kid, in over his head, with no one to turn or talk to. Free of explicit sex, the script is heavy with talk of shoot planning, gaming, texting, skating, and parental subterfuge. Meanwhile, Berger's shots are quietly coaxing the audience to identify with Ezequiel's angst, even while he grooms Juan as the filming date nears. The film's open-ended resolution is reminiscent of Japanese cinema, a moment in time for the audience to ponder, no Hollywood ending here.

Berger explores this challenging story with humanity and compassion for its innocent young victims, a cautionary tale for anyone unaware of child porn's workings. With fine direction and smart cinematography, "Young Hunter" is a courageous effort which won the support of Argentina's National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts. Some say the final cut needs a trim. Still, it's well worth watching.

It's too long. That has to be the first thing to say about the film, it's self indulgent. There are too many scenes where nothing or little happens. This would have been so much better as a film one hour and twenty minutes long. However, I watched right to the end which was inconclusive.

Ezekiel is on a mission to get laid. He gazes longingly at straight boys in the loo, at school, at sporting venues. When he finally meets Mano at a skate park it seems that his dream is realised. However, upon the arrival of Mano's relative onto the scene, we know that things are going to go awry.

I didn't find the grooming aspects of the film convincing. Grooming takes experience and sophistication that a young lad wouldn't have. There was a patience shown that was beyond the years of these protagonists.

For those expecting lads and rumpy-pumpy, there isn't any. The age of the actors and the characters they're playing precludes this. For me, the suggestions of illicit liaisons were delicately and appropriately done.

I'm fine with inconclusive endings as I use my imagination to guess what might have happened after. There were several scenarios in my head of what might have come afterwards. I know why it happened like this. Any follow up to the last scene would have been at odds with the subject matter and themes of the film as well as its languid storytelling. The film is about longing, desire and danger, it's not a detective story.

I don't regret having watched this by any means. But it shouldn't have been so long.

Unbearably parsimonious, the only thing worth watching is the main characters' great performances, who manage to take the indecisive plot somewhere away from utter uneventfulness. It does depict the ugly reality of teen exploitation, but it fails to deliver relatability.

A subject well managed of something society don't want to see.

The subject make us sick but the movie presents it with all the due respect.

Great photography and environment.

I have watched all but one of Berger's films (2015's 'Mariposa'). I really liked 'Plan B' and 'Hawaii' both which count on very good perfomances of their lead actors, specially Manuel Vignau. 'Absent' and 'Taekwondo' are not as good as these I first mentioned, but are okay. 'The Blond One', however, is just a bad one. After watching 'Young Hunter' I now just think that Berger might be becoming self indulgent. His formulas are just becoming too repetitive whereas his actors are becoming less and less charimastic. If you're gonna play a 'thriller-like' take like this one you simply need good acting or else your movie is just gonna feel souless. The writing here is just not very good either. It feems like he had a bunch of shots in his mind but didn't know how to connect them or where to take the history afterwards. Juan Pablo Cestaro looks like he doesn't know what to do with his character. The tension the film tried to build up is artificial.