El cielo dividido

"Broken Sky" is an art film with great performances, visually entertaining (stills/photography shots during credits are superbly done!), and plot treatment not usually seen in any gay films. Some people may find scenes excruciatingly long, but I've enjoyed every moment of it and the journey the director wants to convey in this movie. You must know that you need this arduous shots to feel the emotions of the characters in the movie. The sex scenes are tastefully done, not vulgar, and the gratuitous frontal nudity is significant (in one scene, main actor examines his body/self on the mirror). I've always admired Latin cinema movie-making as mostly they always get the right texture and lighting for their 35 mm. movie. In totality, it's one of the best films I've seen during L.A. OUTFEST 2006 (next to movies: "A Love to Hide," "Boy Culture" and "The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros"). -- Oliver Carnay

I guess it's not surprising that this film received mixed reviews. I knew when I saw it that it would not be for everyone. I have to say though that I really loved this film and would gladly see it again, particularly to share it with someone I care for.

I think you have to just sit back, relax and let this film wash over you. The best way for me to describe it is as a beautiful poem about love, particularly young love. It conveys all the thrill and excitement, the confusion and pain, the jealousy and longing...really all the emotions one experiences from first love. Rather than words, however, this poem is composed of pictures and music and ambient sound. Like a poem it isn't always straightforward, you don't always understand every moment, but the feelings that it evokes are strong and genuine, and it captures universals in a way that a more specific, narrative film never could.

The director has said that the reason there is so little dialogue is that the moments he chose to capture were the ones between the dialogue; before the characters felt the need to speak, and after they had said all there was to say. What's amazing is how illuminating those moments are when one chooses to pay attention to them.

In the context of this film I'm not sure what the phrase "gratuitous male nudity" means. Although I know it never happens in the U.S., in other countries people get naked. It's part of life. It's certainly part of the relationship that this film is all about, and to show it, unceremoniously, as part of the fabric of a life and a relationship can hardly be described as "gratuitous".

I guess the best compliment I can pay this film is to say that I am still thinking and talking about it, weeks after seeing it. The camera work, the composition, the use of sound and music, and the contribution of the young stars, all contribute to the film's success. If you enjoy film-making as an art form, I'd highly recommend you seek out this film.

The film is a bit tedious. It's mostly a silent film, with the bulk o the story provided through a series of voice-overs. While making a silent film like this is not such a bad idea, this is one of those films where the lack of dialog and the repetitive early scenes make it simply tedious. You don't understand the reason for the tedium until well into the picture, and by then it's too late. The first 40 minutes of film is something of a slow piece of Mexican soft porn, and unimaginative soft porn at that. Later in the film the style of the first 40 minutes starts to makes sense, but it's too late, because by then the audience is lost. There is some nice location shooting at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. I've often wondered why more films aren't shot there. The campus is built on the edge of lava fields that lend the campus a very otherworldly feel. My biggest problem with the film is that the director/writer has made the film the way he wanted to see it without regard for how a viewer who doesn't know the story will view it. You can't ignore the audience when you tell a story.

Brilliant concept, brilliant direction, brilliant cast.

Take the final scene. Was that a happy ending or a moment from the past? What to make of the mutual love declaration in the penultimate scene?

What I love about this film are the lateral images - stairs, venetian blinds, bridges, ladders, bookcases, freeways, bars, beds, photographs - and all the shoulder touching, love making, full of doubt and sheer longing moments that overlay them.

This, coupled with the camera's constant circling around the protagonists make this a truly remarkable film. (I hope you noticed the scenes where the same actor appears in more than one spot in the same take.)

Yes, this film is not for everyone. Yes, there is little dialog, and yes, most of you will pan it.

For me, el Cielo Dividido remains a silent, magical love story, brilliantly told by Julián Hernández, coupled with exceptional photography and outstanding performances from Fernando Arroyo, Miguel Ángel Hoppe and Alejandro Rojo in the lead roles.

I listened to to the closing lyrics, " so close, so far," and looked back to the beautiful story I'd just been told.

Well done.

This could have been the gay counterpart to Gone With The Wind given its epic lenght, but instead it satisfied itself by being a huge chain of empty episodes in which absolutely nothing occurs. The characters are uni-dimensional and have no other development in the story (there's actually no story either) than looking for each other and kissing. It's a shame that an interesting aesthetic proposition like having almost no dialog is completely wasted in a film than makes no effort in examining the psychology of its characters with some dignity, and achieving true emotional resonance. On top of that, it pretends to be an "art" film by using the worst naive clichés of the cinematic snobbery. But anyway, if someone can identify with its heavy banality, I guess that's fine.