FILM
Love and Freedom
Probing two men’s sporadic connections over decades
BY GARY M. KRAMER
Out gay Argentine writer/
director Lucio Castro’s
wistful, seductive bromance
“End of the Century”
is one of the year’s best queer
fi lms.
This elegant drama opens with
Ocho (Juan Barberini) arriving in
Barcelona. He is lonely and horny.
Castro allows viewers to fall into
Ocho’s rhythms as he settles into
his Airbnb and wanders around
town, acclimating to his new environment.
Via Skype from Portugal, Castro
explained his deliberate approach
to the storytelling.
“The structure came about organically,”
he explained. “I started
with an archetypal beginning of a
novel: a man arrives in town. Then
I wrote it unplanned. I have this
character in the city alone for 12
minutes with no dialogue. I wanted
him and viewers to become aware
of the city, the architecture, other
people chatting, the sound and
smells of the city. Once the characters
start speaking, the movie
has a lot of dialogue and the city
becomes a background.”
Castro continued, “I liked the
idea of Ocho being a part of the
city, framed by the architecture
and spaces like the balcony, or getting
lost in a hedge maze — a labyrinth.
A new city feels like that.
And love, especially the beginning,
feels like that, too — you go with it,
not knowing the destination.”
When Ocho goes to the beach
one afternoon, he eyes Javi (Ramon
Pujol) but they fail to connect.
Later, on his balcony, Ocho sees
Javi and invites him up for a drink
and sex. Their intimacy is erotic,
but it also involves a discussion of
PrEP and condoms. Castro, who is
part of the generation devastated
by AIDS and had friends die of it,
wanted to emphasize the importance
of safe sex and establishing
trust with a partner. (A curious
scene later in the fi lm has a character
concerned he contracted the
virus after a particular sexual encounter).
Juan Barberini and Ramon Pujol in Lucio Castro’s “End of the Century,” which opens August 16 at the
IFC Center.
Juan Barberini in foreground and Ramon Pujol in background left.
“The new generation has a different
relationship with AIDS, and
in our society you don’t see as
many people dying, so the fear is
not there — there’s a different approach
to it,” he observed.
In explaining how he chose
to present sex, Castro quipped,
“Straight couples have cheese and
wine and then have sex. Gay couples
fi rst they have sex and then
they have cheese and wine.”
It is during their post-coital repast
that Javi drops a bombshell,
telling Ocho, “We’ve met before.”
“That’s my favorite moment
when they confess!” Castro declared,
“because it amplifi es things
and can give you narrative vertigo.
It happens in life where someone
says something that totally changes
the perception of a scene.”
“End of the Century” then fl ashes
back 20 years earlier to show
how the men fi rst met. In this episode,
CINEMA GUILD
CINEMA GUILD
Ocho ar=rives at his friend
Sonia’s (Mía Maestro) apartment.
She is dating Javi, but the guys
connect when Sonia is out of town.
These scenes depict the guys’ previous
romantic encounter — in a
time before cell phones and social
media. They spend the day together,
wandering through a museum,
posing in front of a painting, walking
around statues as they refl ect
on the past and how memory records
it. These moments echo the
present-day interactions we’ve already
seen.
Both vignettes show the men
falling in love. An episode of the
guys dancing to “Space Age Love
Song,” which segues into their fi rst
kiss, is perhaps the fi lm’s most extraordinary
scene — and not just
because it is one of the only two
sequences shot with a hand-held
camera. It conveys the urgency
and intensity of their passions and
creates a connection that ripples
through the years.
Castro also includes a third encounter
between the guys, late in
the fi lm, that is deliberately ambiguous
but also brilliant. It lets
the audience decide what is real
and what is imagined. This is what
makes “End of the Century” so beguiling.
The fi lmmaker’s intention it to
comment on themes of connection
and communication between men.
One stunning moment has Javi
discovering a passage from David
Wojnarowicz’s book “Close to the
Knives” that Ocho left on his bed.
The text, about periods of transition
and being disconnected and
in an unfamiliar state, describes
not just the characters’ sense of
emotional and physical limbo, but
also mirrors the viewers’ experience
of recalibrating Ocho and
Javi’s relationship over the course
of the fi lm. Castro suggests that
gay men inherently feel a sense
of freedom while being “controlled
by their sexual lives,” and he also
asserts that in choosing a partner
and committing to them one is
“less free in some ways.”
“End of the Century” is provocative
because it shows love in both its
rational dimensions and its magical
connectivity. But when asked
about that, Castro demurred.
“I don’t have much to say about
that,” he said. “There is a rational
and magical part to a connection.
I like this person for this, this, and
this, but then there are these other
reasons you can’t explain.”
What he does reveal is that he
dedicated his fi lm, his feature debut,
to his husband Josh.
“The movie is not autobiographical,
but a million things in it relate
to my life,” Castro acknowledged.
“Even though I’m not any of the
characters, I’m all of the characters.
That’s why.”
END OF THE CENTURY | Directed
by Lucio Castro | Cinema Guild |
In Spanish with English subtitles
| Opens Aug. 16, IFC Center, 323
Sixth Ave. at W. Third St. | ifcenter.
com
August 15 - August 28, 2 26 019 | GayCityNews.com
/GayCityNews.com
