Daniel & Ana

May be based on true events but as usual Michael Franco gives you disturbing work. Whoa! Guess everyone has their preferred genre.

The story is good. The fact that it is condemning a real problem makes it even better. For a while, I thought it was going to be a powerful film, but it was not. You will find yourself counting the minutes for the movie to end. The preamble to the peak moment is boring, then less than 20 minutes of a good sequence, perfectible, but good enough, considering the roughness of the situation. That's it. The rest is dull, repetitive, and flat. The plot offered plenty to work with. The story is claimed to be real, thus there were many other things they could have shown, expressed, and exposed to move the audience. However, all the opportunities were wasted with a weak and God-fearing approach to the post-traumatic behavior. They lost it. Toward the end, another dramatic moment is featured as an irrelevant inconvenience solved with Ana giving the cold shoulder to her brother. They took the easy way to solve the conflict. It is fair to say that the photography is flawless. Marimar Vega's performance is the best of the film.

Apparently this film is based on real events as it's illustrated in the opening text of the film. The plot synopsis made it sound a lot more thrilling, suspenseful and disturbing then how it eventually became. It turned out to be a depressing drama.

The incident of the kidnapping and the actual act between the siblings occurred quite early (around 20 - 25 mins) which looked and felt relatively realistic. We are later noted that it was apart of a certain adult film series of sorts. The scene is quite lengthy as nudity of both actors are shown. It isn't too graphic. It's the actual thought of the act which is the disturbing part. Aside from this, there isn't any other tense scene (save for a bizarre and random rape scene towards the end (1:06:40)- which felt entirely out of place).

The acting by the lead of Daniel was rather weak as we could tell he didn't have much experience (apparently this was his very first role). The character seemed like the typical shy quiet teenager at first barely speaking then as the film progressed he seemed more like a psycho. The acting by the actress of Ana was a lot better.

After the incident occurred there was over an hour left of film and the remaining time was simply both characters moping around looking sad, depressed and traumatized by the incident. Although the incident was traumatic we wonder why neither of them told their parents, or Ana not telling her fiancé. She only tells a therapist but even so she didn't give her real name.

The film just has a depressing and dull feel. The two siblings act like it was the end of the world. If anything they were extremely lucky the kidnappers didn't kill them. They seemed to give them back their items (phones/wallets) and did no physical harm. Was expecting something entirely worse but they were ultimately left untouched. Perhaps the motives of the brother Daniel was due to jealousy of his sisters fiancé. The rape scene felt out of place and they didn't exactly discuss it later. Perhaps we are led to believe he had feelings for her which is why he did that? Overall this film feels like they could have done more and went a little more extreme. It ultimately felt tame.

DANIEL & ANA is based on a true incident, and reveals a relatively unknown aspect of The Porn Industry. The thesis of the film is that, especially in South and Central America, some individuals engaging in online pornography may not be willing participants. Although the film is darkly bleak and disturbing, it presents an unfortunate aspect of human behavior. If an individual has been subjected to extreme sexual or psychological horror, they might not react in a way that one would ordinarily expect. I think that many people who have commented on this film have failed to recognize this important fact. The behavior that Daniel engages in after the event, although wildly inappropriate, is not in any way out of the realm of possibility. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not easily 'cured', or even understood, and can cause significant impairment in all aspects of human functioning.

Movie has an amazing first act---sort of drawing you in with its low key matter of factness to a jaw dropping end of the first act---the big thing that happens to the 2 characters happens almost out of nowhere (the only warning you get that the film is even gonna focus on the 2 siblings is at one point the younger brother's friend says to him yo your sister is hot to which he responds the way a normal kid would--something like "nah she's ugly but at least she doesn't look like a piece of s--t like you.") Hell even the abduction when it comes--happens unexpectedly while the two of them are in the car and she's yelling at him to get a haircut for her wedding. That kidnapping of course and the thing that happens there is quite creepy, uncomfortable, spellbinding, and way too real life which makes it all the scarier (no glossy movie star posturing here.) The rest of the movie is dedicated to the emotional damage this event has on the pair of siblings. While seeing the aftermath of such trauma upend both people's lives is interesting to a point---the movie itself starts to feel more than a little repetitive--and even tho the low key tone of the film is very much an asset--the movie starts to feel a little bit dull as you sit there waiting for something else to happen to either one of the two characters. (which is completely ironic given that something major already happened---something that happened when we weren't expecting it and something that should by all means be more than enough story wise.) Just when it seems like the movie is going to break out of its cycle of scene after scene of the 2 characters moping around their house looking vacant and blank---the film more or less ends. (the sister tries to heal herself by getting therapy and trying to confront what happened to her head on--essentially trying to get her life back together---while the brother just goes deeper and deeper into shell shocked madness....which results in several sequences that make up the pretty startling ending of the film.) The last 2 or 3 scenes are interesting enough in that your sense of suspense picks back up enormously. (i had no idea watching the film that those scenes would end up being the end scenes though which make you realize that the ending is just as low key and out of the blue as the abduction at the beginning of the film was.) I won't say what happens--but its not so much that something happens so much as the sustained tone of menace and creepiness that the director successfully punches up in those last few scenes.