#spanish film

libertad (2021) by Clara Roquet

Hopeless romantics.

Love in the Time of Hysteria (Sólo con tu pareja, 1991), is a film by the masterful Alfonso Cuaron. It is his first full length feature film and shows off his cinematic prowess without a high production budget. It serves as a cautionary tale with a sense of hilarity.

Tomas is an ad-man struggling to find a slogan befitting a can of jalapenos, between his work and figuring out ways to get out of work he squeezes in his personal life which is occupied by his insatiable need to satisfy his sexual urges. One day he hooks up with two women in the same night and gets caught. As payback one of the women pulls a nasty prank on him that leads Tomas to believe he has AIDS.

This film does a great job showing the incredible struggles of finding love. It shows a stark comparison between Tomas and his best friend Mateo—Tomas sleeps around and is by relative definition a good looking male whereas his friend Mateo is overweight but is successful as a doctor and is happily married. A delicate balance is established in the film for the audiences to easily tell the two apart. For Tomas takes the act of making love for granted as he unknowingly has sex with numerous partners but finds no meaning in what he does whereas Mateo and his wife Teresa look down on Tomas for they feel like he takes the best parts of being in love for granted, as Teresa constantly scorns Tomas for his ways.

Upon learning of his condition Tomas goes through many ranges of confused emotions as he even creates a manifest of all the women he has slept with and figures out that this is not him, and that all this time he was doing this to fill a void in his life; he ultimately decides to commit suicide, but is often sidetracked by his own cowardice to do so.

The film displays how many view relationships as something that is more of an imprisonment rather than a gift. It takes the protagonist through a grueling self realization process as he is tortured by the thought that he will one day suffer a slow and painful death; teaching the audience that love is not something that is to be taken light heartedly nor is it achieved through simple means and therefore should not be given out like candy.

Another thing to note once again are the fantastical, yet simple set pieces Cuaron uses to tell his story. There is a lot to look at for he frames his shots with focus being his primary initiative, for the audience is forced to use the elements of his cinematography to also figure out what is going on and what the character is thinking.

Not the best in terms of story, but Cuaron’s artistic prowess keeps the audiences’ attention transfixed on an otherwise “stale-ish” story.

¾

-DK

I’ll be seeing Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovars new film) next month and I have been looking forward to this for so long I cannot even put it into words.

Does anybody here like him? What’s your favourite film he’s done?