Esteros (2016)
7.0
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Matias and Jeronimo have known each other since childhood, but their friendship took a new turn during the holiday before starting high school when they both sexually awoke together. Matias’s father indirectly broke up their relationship by accepting a job very far away. More than ten years later, Matias returns to his old town for carnival with his girlfriend and unexpectedly runs into Jeronimo. Feelings will slowly reappear and will reach a climax, but at what price?
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In today’s conservative, predominantly Catholic Poland, an open homosexual relationship is more likely to trigger gay bashing than gay pride; so it is in Tomasz Wasilewski’s sophomore feature, the feel-bad coming-out drama “Floating Skyscrapers.” Although the lead character is something of a lout as well as an emotional and intellectual cipher, this artfully shot, sexually provocative feature nabbed the Karlovy Vary fest’s East of the West competish kudo and is making the festival rounds.
Otherwise, Kuba seems to have few responsibilities or interests, apart from being a dab hand in the kitchen and indulging in wordless sexual encounters with men in bathroom stalls at the gym. When Sylwia drags Kuba to an art opening, he ungraciously decamps to a balcony, where he shares a joint and a long conversation with effeminate-looking college student Michal (Bartosz Gelner). Glimpsing the two men from across the room, Sylwia glowers at the way they seem to be really into each other. She soon has a lot more to scowl about, as Kuba abandons her and their plans every time Michal calls.
One of the weaknesses of the film is that while Kuba convincingly comes across as a closeted, self-loathing gay man, his sudden declaration of love for Michal at the one-hour mark seems out of character. Indeed, their relationship is shown to revolve around physical desire; we never get to hear their conversations or find out what makes the not particularly likable Kuba tick.
Wasp is the feature-length debut of Swiss writer/director Philippe Audi-Dor. The film features only three actors and takes place in and around a beautiful house in Gordes, Provence. One of the first things you notice is that Wasp is incredibly understated and that’s definitely one of its strengths. Audi-Dor doesn’t feel the need to make his characters veer off onto monologues to move the plot along and often the silences in the film speak volumes about the characters.
We really don’t want to give too much else away about the plot but all we’ll say is that there are plenty of surprising twists and turns as you head to Wasp’s climax. Audi-Dor has assembled a stellar cast for the movie with all of the leads equal to one another in terms of their performance. Simon Haycock does a great job of conveying Olivier’s conflict through his emotive performance and he has superb chemistry with both Hugo Bolton and Elly Condron. Bolton makes what could have been a fairly flighty role rather meaty and Condron has great fun playing the devilishly manipulative Caroline. The trio works really well together and they really excel in the scenes where the tension threatens to boil over.
