Martín (Hache) (Spanish)

This is a very different film. It shows the role of a parent in our modern society, the role of a child, the relationship, the friendship. Its a story about a father and son, so comes the question why is this a gay film? Well, The best friend of the father happens to be gay, so the film on a side also focuses on gay-straight men friendship and how it can all be pure, real and unapologetic.

Martín is a wealthy writer who left his family in Buenos Aires five years ago to live and work in Madrid. He has a nineteen year old son Hache who is a restless, foundationless teenager who refuses to go to school preferring to simply play his electric guitar and run with the drug crowd. His mother has remarried and has a new baby and Hache is feeling like a third wheel. He accidentally overdoses on alcohol and drugs and his mother notifies Martín that Hache has attempted suicide to induce Martín to return to Buenos Aires and take back his son Hache. In Madrid, Martín has been living the life of a recluse whose only contacts are his girlfriend Alicia, who escapes her life by an addiction to coke but loves Martín, and his best friend the bisexual actor Dante who is an Epicurean living all aspects of life for the pleasures he finds. Once Hache has moved in with his distant, cold, sullen father he falls under the influence of Alicia and Dante who adore him and attempt to show him a life of sunshine in Madrid while Martín sequesters himself in his writing. Martín for some reason is very uncomfortable with the his son living with him and tries to avoid talking to him etc. Ultimately Hache grows to understand the spectrum of worldviews, Alicia commits suicide because she never finds the love from Martín, that she has alway been wanting. Hache returns back to Argentina to disciver himself and also because he always felt as a tourist in Madrid. The end truly touches you.

The relationship between the father and son is very realistic and disturbing. You can see how Martín is uncomfortable because he has never been there for his son. It is not as if he does not care about him but he is just not forthright in expressing his love for others. His best friend Dante i always there for him. In fact Hache spends time with Dante and Alicia much more than he does with his father. Acting wise, everyone is superb and the film is also touching but it just failed to strike that one chord with me as a viewer where My heart would cry for either father or the son. The characters were linear in that sense. There was his one scene where the father talks about desperation of life after even the faintest thought of loosing his son. It's the nearest you will get to understand fatherly love if you don't yet have a baby.

Interesting film. Heart touching but does not leave behiind the mark that it should have. (4.5/10)