Amar

This could be a companion piece to Gaspar Noes Love. Less explicit (although still containing sexual situations and nudity), but with similar themes. It is about love and trying to figure out what it really is and what it really means. Love is something that you can't grab obviously, it is something that you feel. But what if you feel it is going away? And is it really going away? All sorts of questions are asked without the movie spelling the questions out.

Suffice it to say, that the movie is a hard watch. You can't just sit back, kick your feet up and watch it. It does have it's lighter moments, but it does provoke and it does test the viewer (in more ways than one, like the dominating and domination role and other stuff "penetrating" and otherwise) ... Question is, if you want are willing to invest and have the patience with this

A Spanish drama. A story that shows in a crude way the relationships of young adults and even adolescents. María Pedraza is spectacular. It is about which boy and girl love each other and tries to overcome various conflicts in the relationship. A slow and even arrhythmic film. It is not a romantic comedy. Crude Dry Puzzling. Where is that line that divides love from passion? Here it shows it in an interesting way, like jealousy, possession, blackmail. Loaded with many erotic scenes but well cared for. This movie is not for everyone, you must like those crude and parsimonious movies.

European film makers are specialized in pleasing a governmental commission. And sex does sell. So there is sex. And enough script for 30 minutes, pushed up to whatever the commission said it has to be.

The scenes are quite believable. The interaction is good. I am sure the production team could have made at least 4 five-minute shorts. But there is no story. And no character. It is a mere snapshot, or better yet, two successive snapshots and nothing more. The actors come from nowhere. And go nowhere. There is no evolution. And, of course, no action. Sure, the camera work is pretty good. The actors are beautiful. And that's about it: enough depth to make an excellent ad for a Spa during the Super Bowl.

Although the movie has some good scenes and some of the dialogue is well written (like when teens talk to each other), the script overall is not good. We don't know a lot about characters as they are not well developed, we are not interested in them & everything that happens seems arbitrary. Although the direction is adequate and the use of light to mirror the relationship status is inspired, it's hardly innovative. Although it's obviously going for a grand statement about first love and first heartbreak and how it leaves consequences, it simply comes off as a trifle, a genre exercise that will only satisfy the target audience of teenagers in toxic relationships.

5.5

Innocence. Such was the time where youngsters were all vulnerable and there is nothing in life but love. The film portrays a beautiful picture of those times without diving into much drama or thrill. This is life as it gets real and a turning point, where decisions taken will have an impact on the rest of these students' lives. They are unsure what to do, they don't know about what will make them happy, they want to experience life fully.

Beautiful cinematography especially for the long opening and closing scenes where we see Laura and Carlos together, where the film gives the feeling of love-making rather than pure sex, which one can find in 99% of films these days.

Acting is powerful, both young actors perform well, especially Maria Padrese fills the screen much similar to Adele in Blue is the Warmest Color.

I tend to like first films, first books, debut albums. This is no exception!