Drama (Spanish)

This film was so so heavy. Few minutes into the film and I realized that this is not going to be a simple regular watch. There was very thin line between real and surreal and acting vs reality. After a while I just gave up trying to understand where the whole film was heading and what was real and what was acting. I also gave up trying to figure out what they characters actually were.

Three theater students, influenced by a charismatic professor and French theorist Antonin Artaud's acting technique, begin to experiment with their own lives, searching for real emotions and situations to bring onto the stage. Blond and bisexual Mateo, luscious Maria and conflicted gay Angel. Their obsession with becoming better actors leads them to their darkest sides, surpassing boundaries that neither they nor their teachers could ever imagine. The professor gives them various exercises which lead them to go to places in the city that they have not seen before. Each loves the other, and each urges the other to overcome his or her inhibitions: The normally retiring Angel not only consorts with the gay hustlers who congregate at the village square; he allows himself to be "sold," more or less, until Mateo rescues him. Mateo, meanwhile, flirts with the homoerotic, even though it seems to be against his nature, because how can he be a real actor otherwise? Maria, psychologically stressed because Mateo never stops acting, dresses like a prostitute, and it becomes unclear whether she is one or not - only that Mateo's battle with her client brings matters to a breaking point.

The truth is that the 3 individuals are trying to find themselves through the performance in relation to one another. The ending got me a little confused when Mateo is trying to co-relate whatever is going on with what happened in his mothers life (which apparently is somehow a true story and is related to Chilean history). I will do some research and try to find more about it. The acting of the principal characters was good and the chemistry they shared was also good but the film completely failed to connect with me as an audience. Anything can happen, and this film certainly accepting various alternatives.

It is an intense film. Of course, this can be for better or for worse. (3/10)