Director: Claudio Marcone
Music composed by: Dario Segui
Screenplay: Rodrigo Antonio Norero
Costume design: Sebastian Torrico
Bruno, an architect with a great life, is hired to build an iconic landmark, and as he works with a gay history teacher named Fer, an unexpected and intense romance starts to blossom.
Bruno vốn là một kiến trúc sư có một cuộc sống tuyệt vời, được thuê để xây dựng một danh lam thắng cảnh mang tính biểu tượng, và khi anh ta làm việc với một giáo sư lịch sử đồng tính tên là Fer, một cuộc tình lãng mạn bất ngờ và mãnh liệt bắt đầu nở rộ.
| In the Grayscale | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
| |
| En la Gama de los Grises | |
| Directed by | Claudio Marcone |
| Written by | Rodrigo Antonio Norero |
| Starring | Francisco Celhay Emilio Edwards Sergio Hernández Daniela Ramirez Matias Torres |
Release dates
|
|
Running time
| 101 minutes |
| Country | Chile |
| Language | Spanish |
Film Review: ‘In the Grayscale’
Guy Lodge Film Critic@guylodge
MARCH 14, 2015 | 05:12AM PT
Claudio Marcone's debut feature is a measured, tenderly played study of imprecise sexual identity.Often treated in film as an adjunct to LGBT experience, bisexuality gets measured, sensitive consideration in the Chilean coming-out drama “In the Grayscale.” A gentle boy-meets-boy romance that builds into a balanced ideological debate between its two lovers — one a gay man for whom homosexuality is a black-or-white concept, the other choosing to remain, as the title implies, undefined — Claudio Marcone’s freshman feature breaks few formal or narrative boundaries, but makes its personal and political points with quiet clarity. A crackling erotic charge, meanwhile, counters the pic’s otherwise reserved approach, giving “Grayscale” a bright future on the gay fest circuit following its Miami Film Festival premiere.
From its whispery tone — often belying the pointed things being said — to the soft, sunlit textures of Andres Jordan’s lensing, Marcone’s film appears to take its cue from Andrew Haigh’s “Weekend,” another film that found delicate dramatic friction in the contrasting temperaments of two men in love. Opposition is largely internal in Beppe Norrero’s lean, understated screenplay, as heterosexually married protagonist Bruno (Francisco Celhay) discovers that bending his sexual and social identity is easier — to a point — than he might hitherto have imagined. The Chile depicted by Marcone and Jordan is certainly a more hopeful place than, say, the despairing, abuse-scarred country inhabited by their compatriot Pablo Larrain; none-too-subtle symbols of impending union and rebuilding abound in their portrait of modern-day Santiago, as human lives remain under construction.
At 35, Bruno outwardly appears more settled than he feels: A successful freelance architect, he is married to his girlfriend of 11 years, Soledad (Daniela Ramirez), and a dedicated father to their smart, inquisitive son, Daniel (Matias Torres). It emerges, however, that the marriage has been on fragile ground from the start, with both spouses having stepped back from it at different points. The pic’s wordless opening tracks Bruno’s lonely domestic routine in the studio he occupies following a recent separation. While Soledad chides him for referring to marriage in transitional terms, that’s not strictly true: As with his under-explored sexuality, he appears content to hover indefinitely between defining statuses.
That resistance to resolution is tested when a high-end professional commission — to design a new city monument for the capital — brings him into contact with gregarious history teacher Fer (Emilio Edwards), a comfortably out gay man with who swiftly senses the curiosity behind Bruno’s impassive facade. Though their rapport is immediate, Marcone patiently teases out the expression (or rather the self-admission) of the architect’s desire; thanks to Felipe Galvez’s spare, thoughtful editing, every cut to Bruno alone in his bedroom following a platonic date with Fer feels like a rebuff to the audience’s own wishes. When they do finally kiss, interestingly, Marcone keeps the moment offscreen, only tipping viewers off to this development in retrospect. Following this calculated omission, the relationship’s immediate past is kept as uncertain as its future, mirroring the protag’s own present-tense mindset.
That, understandably, is a source of frustration to the more demonstrative Fer, who insists that Bruno is withholding his true identity — even after Soledad, Daniel and Bruno’s open-minded grandfather (Sergio Hernandez) learn of his indiscretions, with not-wholly-expected consequences. Bruno, however, is less convinced that this period of sexual experimentation has a finite conclusion, even as his feelings for Fer deepen; neither the script nor Marcone’s compassionate but composed direction offer judgment or instruction either way. The two terrific leads play the push-pull-retreat dynamic of this tender but tenuous relationship with intelligence and an intuitive sense of physical connection. Celhay, meanwhile, beautifully plays Bruno’s emotional diffidence against his more confidently strapping exterior.
More than a picturesque, mood-serving backdrop — flatteringly served by Jordan — Santiago itself emerges as a key player in this relationship study, as even the lovers’ differing responses to their surroundings (and their post-colonial national identity) portend emotional impasses in their affair. Bruno’s creative blockage over his commission, meanwhile, speaks volumes about his opposition to defining gestures and expressions. As he slowly arrives at a solution, Marcone slightly overworks the symbolic properties of bridges and rivers, but the larger social subtext is nonetheless affecting.
Film Review: 'In the Grayscale'
Reviewed at Miami Film Festival (Ibero-American Prima Opera competition), March 9, 2015. Running time: 96 MIN. (Original title: "En la gama de los grises")
Production
(Chile) A Tantan Films production. (International sales: Outplay, Paris.) Producers, Luis Cifuentes, Claudio Marcone.
Crew
Directed by Claudio Marcone. Screenplay, Beppe Norero. Camera (color, HD), Andres Jordan; editor, Felipe Galvez; production designer, Daniela Lopez; costume designer, Sebastian Torrico; sound, Pepe de la Vega; visual effects, Jaime Gandara; assistant director, Ebana Guerin.
With
Francisco Celhay, Emilio Edwards. Daniela Ramirez, Matias Torres, Sergio Hernandez, Marcial Tagle. (Spanish dialogue) ...
‘In the Grayscale’ (‘En la Gama de los Grises’): Miami Review
THE BOTTOM LINE
A perceptive look at a thirtysomething’s struggle for sexual self-definition
Chilean Claudio Marcone’s bisexuality-themed debut took the Ibero-American debut award at Miami’s recent international film festival
“If you’re gay,” says one of the characters of In the Grayscale, “then it’s black and white”. But that’s not the case for Bruno, the protagonist of a film which explores the impact, both on the self and on others, of not slotting into the standard categories. Sensitively scripted and played, sharp but schematic in the connections it makes between the individual and society, Claudio Marcone’s debut lacks the distinctiveness of say Desiree Akhavan’s recent Appropriate Behaviour, which tackles similar issues in a more upbeat, expansive way. But it nonetheless works where it matters most, at the level of character, with Grayscale likely to add color to LGBT-themed fests and sidebars.
Early scenes show architect Bruno (Francisco Celhay, best-known in Chile for his TV work) alone in his grandfather’s (Sergio Hernandez) workshop, where it soon becomes clear he’s not so much alone as stranded between two lives, one actual, one potential. The first is his “straight” marriage with his wife Soledad (Daniela Ramirez) from whom he’s taking a break, and son Daniel (Matias Torres). The other potential life turns up in the outgoing, cheeky-chappie form of Fernando (Emilio Edwards), a Santiago historian who is to be Bruno’s city guide as he sets about a commission to design a new architectural landmark for the city.
Bruno is hesitant about what kind of building to design and, now that he’s forced to decide, equally uncertain about which his “true” sexuality is. Some wonderfully nuanced, erotically charged cat and mouse exchanges over the film’s first half -- Fernando in open pursuit, Bruno holding back -- reach their inevitable conclusion at about halfway. Their first kiss is interestingly withheld from the screen, and is only debated in retrospect, a rare scripting sleight of hand in a film which is otherwise as unadorned and well-defined as its protagonists’ often half-naked bodies.
Two questions dominate from this point: will Bruno figure out which design to go with, and, more significantly, how far will he go down the road towards the black and white which defines Fernando’s comparatively uncomplicated sexuality?
The exchanges between Bruno and Fernando, which are the film’s emotional and dramatic cornerstones, are beautifully played from the outset, both actors delivering attractively naturalistic performances through dialogues supercharged with subtext. Other characters successfully round out the effects of Bruno’s indecision on those around him: Soledad, who true to her name is indeed lonely, but who will later get the film’s lengthiest monologue; his grandfather, surprisingly supportive and showing that it’s not enough to categorize such issues as merely generational, and his son, at the center of perhaps the film’s most dramatically vibrant scene. Otherwise, the treatment is low-key treatment throughout, the script wisely refusing to play up the histrionics implicit in such a tale of problematic self-identity
Initially, Bruno suggests that his architectural icon should be a phallic tower: later it becomes a transitional bridge. The symbolism may not be subtle, but it does efficiently show how Bruno’s inner conflict ties into larger concerns -- particularly that of Chile as a mixed race nation, never quite at ease with itself.
Andres Jordan’s camerawork is often slightly wobbly hand-held, creating an insiderish, quasi-documentary air, while the exteriors use natural light and lend some scenes a lens-flare joyousness. Bruno alone, however, is sometimes framed as though to emphasize his isolation, while one scene is unashamedly voyeuristic in the way it fills the screen with parts of him sleeping -- his torso, his hand. It is a rare concession to stylistic quirkiness in a film which is otherwise refreshingly unmediated -- which does not mean unsubtle -- and mannerism-free.
Production company: Tantan Films
Cast: Francisco Celhay, Emilio Edwards, Daniela Ramirez, Matias Torres, Sergio Hernandez, Marcial Tagle
Director: Claudio Marcone
Screenwriter: Beppe Norero
Producers: Luis Cifuentes, Claudio Marcone
Executive producers: Miguel Angel Muniz
Director of photography: Andres Jordan
Production designer: Daniela Lopez
Costume designer: Sebastian Torrico
Editor: Felipe Galvez
Casting director:
Sales: Outplay
No rating, 96 minutes
No comments:
Post a Comment