Memorias de lo que no fue

"Fernando" (Paul Act) wakes up in a strange apartment with absolutely no recollection of how he got there, or indeed of where "there" actually is. Shortly afterwards, his host "Miguel" (Eduardo Longoria) appears and (very) slowly, and after a tentative start, they try to put together just what happened to bring them to that moment. It's told via flashbacks - and prepare yourselves for plenty of sex as we gradually unravel what was a fairly horrific evening for our young "Fernando". An evening which both of them decide to try and avenge. The version I saw looked a little like a poor NTSC conversion, which didn't help - but the two performances are quite strong and, ultimately caring and loving. The dialogue is fairly sparing and the slow pace really is quite an effort - though once you do finally get to the end, you appreciate much of the function of the hitherto ponderous pace. It's clearly been done on a shoestring, but don't let that put you off - give it a go. It's got something about it...

Being gay, I am always open to gay-themed movies, especially when the story promises something original. In this case the synopsis hinted at some sort of exciting homoerotic psychological thriller, which sounded at least interesting.

Well, it was not. First of all, the pace of this movie is extremely slow. Dialogues are scarce, there's lots of silence and speechless staring at each other. The thriller element is thin: after a wild party a boy wakes up at another boys house with a total memory loss, apparently due to some traumatic experience at or around that party. The rest of the movie we witness his frustration, the helpful approach of hist host, and the gradual recurrence of his memory.

This is not much to fill almost two hours of film, so apparently director and writer Leopoldo Laborde thought of filling the time with an abundance of graphic sex-scenes, and with that I mean: all the way, unveiled, full frontal everything. Now I'm no prude and I have nothing against nudity and sex, but at least it should be in some way functional for the narrative. Here however I failed to see the need for it: apart from one scene with a flash back to the traumatic experience (a rape) it for the rest never adds anything to the (meagre) story. To be honest, after the third or fourth of these sex-scenes it all became pretty wearisome and the opposite of sensuous or titillating.

It didn't help that the photography was annoyingly bad, many scenes are underexposed or backlighted. It didn't help either that the main character (the one with the memory-loss) was pictured as an unattractive and hysterical nerd with the permanent gaze of a scared rabbit; it absolutely failed me what the other, much more attractive one ever saw in him. Both young actors play all sex-scenes for real, I cannot help wondering about the intentions of this director, to me it seemed to come close to exploitation.

To sum it up: an uninteresting movie with a shallow story, only memorable for its very graphic sex. Some movies play with balancing on the thin line between erotic and pornographic, but here this line is definitely crossed. There's nothing wrong with porn, there are a zillion sites available on internet to provide it, so to watch porn no-one needs the excuse of a wannabe arthouse film.

This movie of blossoming revenge is interesting with some mystery and suspense but it has its flaws including some story gaps and direction. Some good direction gets marred by overuse especially some long scenes with no dialogue. The acting was decent for amateurs but fortunately with no sign of cue cards. always looked believable but it was without passion and emotionless except for two rape scenes, one of which lasted only a few seconds. It is worth a look but no award nominations are expected.

I must have seen the "Mary Whitehouse" version! No unsimulated sex in the film that I saw. Lots of nudity yes, but no actual hanky panky that could be considered porny.

The film recounts the gradual recovery of Fernando's memory after he woke up in a strange flat not knowing how he got there or anything of his life before that. He can't even remember his name. He and Miguel carry 90% of the film between them and it'a only in the last 10% of the film that other characters speak and have some input. It's not boring at all; I watched the lot without wanting things to hurry up.

The languid pace of the first part of the film is swapped for a shockingly graphic revenge set of scenes when the lads discover why and how Fernando lost his memory. The ending is left open as to whether further action will be taken.

This looked like a pretty amateur production in many ways. Some of the shots were not lighted properly and some patches of dialogue were not particularly audible. The subtitles were inaccurate on occasion, laughably so in some lines. Nonetheless, I watched right through, even ignoring a bunch of WhatsApp messages that were coming through to my phone.

During this review I put the mark down to a six and then put it up to a seven again. I'd thought that it could have been better with more money thrown at the production. But then I reflected and I was wrong. It's the very lack of polish that made this an enjoyable experience.

Brilliant, raw, real, and challenging. If this movie doesn't affect your soul then may I suggest you do some soul searching and watch it again and again until you get it! This movie will become a sociological cult classic for sure.