Juan Carlos Mora | A Salvo (To Safety) / 2016

shoot me, and i bleed

by Douglas Messerli

 

Juan Carlos Mora (screenwriter and director) A Salvo (To Safety) / 2016 [20 minutes]

 

Spanish director Juan Carlos Mora’s laconic film Safe takes place over a period of three years, represented by five mornings in bedrooms.

     The first is when Victor (Alejandro Valenciano) invites Hugo (Jose Ovejas) into his den of safety, his bedroom. The two are in clearly in love and looking forward to a relationship, despite the fact that they met up through Victor’s former boyfriend Miguel. Hugo has brought Victor a postcard which also is posted to the wall, but the fact that on the same hangs one of Miguel’s paintings becomes a sore point for Hugo.

      Although the short film never explains the reasons why Miguel continues to come between the two, the situation hints that perhaps they had already developed a relationship before Miguel intruded. Their coming together appears to be is a reheeling of old wounds, an attempt to remake a relationship that never fully blossomed between them or was perhaps torn apart by the other. But in this first scene there is real love and the evidence of a new beginning.

    In the next scene, Victor is evidently moving into Hugo’s larger bedroom, bringing all his possessions with him, and moving out of the zone of safety he talks about in the first scene. But with him has come Miguel’s painting, which again angers Hugo and brings up further resentments.

     Over the next couple of mornings in the bathroom and bedroom that we encounter the two, that resentment broods, particularly in Victor who has destroyed the painting after Hugo’s complaint, but clearly also no longer feels that he himself is fully “safe” in their relationship. The specter of his other relationship still comes between them.

     Soon after Victor leaves, symbolized by Hugo pulling away the old sheets and replacing them with new.

      Years pass. Hugo receives a call from Victor saying that he believes he is still in love with him, Hugo paying a visit to Victor’s new, smaller bedroom, clearly also a bastion of safety for Victor. Victor deludes himself, suggesting that it is as if time hadn’t existed. But Hugo suggests that he can find no real memories of their relationship in this room, the postcard being the only sign of their former relationship. In the interim, Hugo has graduated with his Masters’ degree and is looking for a job. Hugo is working for the same “agency,” the line of work remaining a mystery; but it is clear he has not substantially altered his life.

  

     Although he might love to start over again with Hugo, or even begin where they left off, it is evident that Hugo cannot return to the past. When Victor pulls out a cigarette, Hugo expresses surprise at his now smoking. And Victor must face the fact that there are been too many changes for both of them. As he admits, it appears too much time has passed.

       Upon the first meeting, Victor had quoted a passage from a book, “If you shoot me, I’ll bleed,” which he interprets as meaning that you have to except things as they are. Now Hugo quotes the line back to Victor, “If you are shot, you bleed.” Their relationship has long ago been over, perhaps before it even began.

 

Los Angeles, November 21, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2023).