Temblores

Jayro Bustamante's 'Temblores' bit into the burning themes of Guatemalan society, such as faith, homophobia, and the effort to maintain a good, clean reputation even at the cost of personal freedom and happiness. The movie captivates with interesting approaches and strong acting performances. Unfortunately, it squanders the immense potential for something vital and thrilling by never going deep enough on either topic and only loosely touches on the conflicting emotional life of its protagonist.

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.

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

Story takes place in modern day Central America and seriously, it might seem more appropriate if it had taken place in Nazi Germany. An ultra conservative, wealthy, holy roller family and sadistic church leaders practicing homo conversion therapy puts enormous pressure on a middle-aged, married gay guy with children to conform to their expectations. The plot would be more convincing if the married gay guy were much younger, in which case we would expect him to be more vulnerable to family, religious and societal pressures. But here we see an older, gay guy, who has recently come out, but doesn't yet seem to have a strong enough mind to overcome the steaming piles of BS that are being heaped upon him at every turn. On the other hand, his gay boyfriend has totally accepted what he is and what he likes. He makes no apologies for what he likes to do with other consenting adults. The actor playing Pablo has a lean, tall, masculine, athletic build...unfortunately we don't get to see much of it. Pretty much a bummer of a movie....not much visually that's interesting or pretty. The story line, as told, doesn't seem very likely. There's a paradox here of sorts....the primary character, Pablo, looks strong and mature, but he's just a baby inside. He can't think for himself and relies upon others to think for him. Six stars for a respectable attempt.

"Temblores" is another in the "gay conversion" film genre, so, though it's a solid enough movie in its own right, it suffers from having a "been there done that" quality.

This time around the setting is Guatemala, and the protagonist is a married man with children whose affair with another man sends his strict religious family into a tailspin. The movie marches through its predictable paces with decent if not especially memorable performances and a suitably downbeat ending.

"Temblores" isn't a film that I'm going to spend much time mulling over or have a strong feeling about one way or the other, but it does shed light on some really backwards cultural beliefs and laws in Guatemala, so if it brings some awareness to the harm yet one more country's rigid convictions are doing to a subset of its population, I can forgive it for being a bit late to the party.

Grade: B