Taekwondo

This movie is a great depiction of the division between a heterosexual and homosexual day-to-day living. Compared to a heterosexual lifestyle, the gay male gaze in this movie hits right in spot as the process of looking, directly or indirectly, is most of the time will be the only thing you get to fulfil your wishes.

In the movie, the male nudity, being so close to it but you cannot touch it, you can only desire it. The raw instincts between the heterosexual and homosexual male are the same but while one is simply open to it and accessible (like how easily the male and female couples get it on in the movie), the other one requires the right conditions, right place, a lot of judgement and thinking.

In liberated communities, a woman and a man intercourse or flirting can easily be enacted but a homosexual relationship still involves too much at stake.

This movie is all about these and it beautifully depicts unfulfilled desires of this community.

In 2013 Marco Berger wrote and directed 'Hawaii', a film whose central premise was a will-they-won't-they relationship between two young men whiling away the summer in a nice house. Two years later Martín Farina made 'Fulboy', a documentary about a football team that was characterised by random conversations and far too many extreme close-ups of various body parts that made it difficult to know who was talking at any one time. So what is the result when Berger and Farina make a film together?

Hosting a group of male friends at his family's nice house for a summer break, Fernando also invites Germán, a team-mate from his taekwondo class. While the rest of the gang - usually clad only in shorts and occasionally in nothing at all - engage in random conversation, Germán wonders if Fernando is going to come on to him. But is Fernando homosexual anyway?

There are definite flaws in this film: co-director Farina's love of the body-part close-up is well in evidence, although thankfully slightly tempered since 'Fulboy' - most times the viewer eventually finds out who is talking! There are also times when closer attention to continuity would have been welcome: the girlfriend of one of the men suddenly disappears without explanation, and the appearance of a pet dog toward the end of the film is similarly unexplained - where was he before - locked in the shed?

I also felt the film dragged slightly in its last third, although it is hard to know how it could have been shortened: with something always happening on-screen - albeit in an extremely relaxed fashion - obvious padding is kept to a minimum. The actors are all convincing in their delivery of the mostly inconsequential, occasionally offensive, conversations: not obviously ad libbing but also not declaiming as if they were in Shakespeare. And - crucially for this film - they all appear content with the paucity of their wardrobes and pleasing casual nudity. So, despite the film's weak spots, I'd happily watch it again.

From the first scene I knew I would enjoy this movie. I loved Call Me By Your Name for how intimate and real the setting felt, which is certainly present in Taekwondo too. The long shots of different details of the house that the movie spends all its time in; the zoom ins on the little, habitual actions the characters take; the non-existent censorship that doesn't necessarily make certain scenes or shots crude, they are purely shown for what they are - they made it feel like I was there. The lack of structure in the storyline and the mundaneness of the characters' conversations and activities added to that feeling too.

However, it felt like this aspect of Taekwondo took over the majority of the movie, so much so that the actual genre that it's supposed to be was barely present. While Taekwondo is supposed to be a gay romance, there is no actual romance until the last minutes or so. What we do get feels like a blink in comparison to the entirety of the movie. I understand that the non-sexual intimacy between Fernando and Germán, the two main love interests, that we see right from the beginning is part of their romance, but it's just too little. Especially considering the fact that many people would come into this movie with the expectation of a gay love story.

I think the movie as it was was lovely and atmospheric, and I don't necessarily think there needed to be more romance, although it would have been nice. But perhaps the producers could have altered how Taekwondo was marketed, so that it didn't appear as a romance movie as much. That said I don't know the details of how marketing went about for Taekwondo because I found out about this movie on someone's watch list.

All in all though, if you like watching men without the toxic masculinity present and in all their glory, and if you simply want a movie to escape into, I'd recommend this. I would suggest to look for other movies however if you're particularly looking for gay romance.

Boy, talk about a slow burn! This is a gorgeous to look at film about a group of good looking straight (?) young men who get together for a weekend and spend much of it naked and stoned discussing their previous or next sexual conquests. Thereafter, it isn't really about anything - or did I miss something? We get a sense from early on that Gabriel Epstein "Germán" has the hots for his taekwondo buddy Lucas Papa ("Fer") but the meandering way in which this story progresses makes for a terribly ponderous route to courtship. It isn't that it needs to be end to end sex, it's that it ought to be end to end something! Basically, nothing happens....

In 2014 I thought and wrote of Berger's Hawaii... Berger's use of eroticism is a bit obvious in this. Perhaps because I've seen his moves before, they stand out as a bit contrived.

It seems for Taekwondo the only effort to stretch and evolve has been to up the ante of sexual tension with more men and more (much more) nudity. Again Berger shows us that eroticism is introduced by so much more than sex. Its still an animal notion of combined human attraction, contact and bond. The movie clings to his oft used narrative "will they or wont they" but here it felt reduced to teen angst. I recognized some effort to add questions of machismo, sexuality (as usual) and questions of the bonds of friendship. If you've seen Berger's wonderful "Plan B" or "Sexual Tension" "Absent" or "Hawaii" you've see most of the tricks and many of the shots also used in this movie as well as pacing, shot composition, and narrative exploration before, but in a better movie than this one.