José Manuel Carrasco | Pulsiones (Drives) / 2009

friends

by Douglas Messerli

 

José Manuel Carrasco (screenwriter and director) Pulsiones (Drives) / 2009 [10 minutes]

 

In many respects, Drives is a charmingly slight comedy. A handsome young Spaniard, Guillermo Martín about to marry in a month his girlfriend of 7 years, Carolina. The trouble is ever since high school he has also had “drives” as the translation puts it, for gay relationships. There was a friend in high school, another in college, and later one of his coaches. Determined to discover whether he is truly or just to get it out of his system, he hires a professional male prostitute, Félix (Marko Mihailovic) to have sex with him.

      His discomfort with the meet-up is immediate and he attempts to explain the situation, the friendly prostitute, who works for an agency, attempting to find a way to best approach him. Kissing doesn’t work for Félix, who has, in fact, given another name. A massage simply makes Guillermo (who has also lied about his name) chatty, and he explains that he usually has known his previous male sex mates as friends before their sexual encounters.

       As the hours pass, and Guillermo talks, he begins to fear for the upcoming marriage—“I’m a top but Carolina says I’m sluggish”—as Félix, beginning to care about his customer, argues that he’s just insecure about the marriage, noting that he too has a girlfriend.

     Guillermo turns the tables, so to speak, asking whether or not he’s told her about his line of employment, in which he has been engaged now for most of his life, beginning with giving head to his teacher in high school to pass a course. Félix admits he hasn’t told her since some women “get off,” he argues, in having a rent boy as their boyfriend, and he doesn’t want to into that in his relationship with her. And he doesn't to lose his girlfriend.

      The two continue talking and before long Guillermo suggests that he really likes Félix, and that he’s a good man despite his profession. Before long, the two, hinting at their respect for one another, realize that they have become friends, and finally begin to kiss and have what appears to be perfect sex.

     As Félix leaves, he hands back the money paid to him, insisting that he doesn’t charge friends. Guillermo watches him leave somewhat sadly. And in the very next scene, we have a repeat of the first half of the film, as Guillermo has obviously called up again for Félix’s services once again, the two sitting on the couch almost as uncomfortable as the first time, but in the ending laughing at the situation, knowing that the real reason he is there is because Guillermo wants a repeat performance with is friend.

        As the credits begin to scroll, however, an end narrative states that Guillermo married Carolina on the date they had planned and 320 people ended the wedding. I agree with Walter Neto’s comment on Letterboxd: “I've never seen anything as pointless as the text that appears on the screen by the end. Why not have an open ending?!”

       Indeed, it has turned the comedy into a kind of tragedy, representing yet another situation where a man with obviously homosexual or bisexual inclinations has entered into a heterosexual marriage where he will ever be fully satisfied, and perhaps like many of kind will begin to seek out gay sexual situations once again. Certainly, he’ll never have as good of sex as he did with the well-hung prostitute “friend.” We already know that the two men will certainly desire to meet up again and again, despite the women in their lives. The result after the marriage will probably be disastrous.

       It appears that Carrasco hasn’t thought out the implications of what he has done in this film unless he is intentionally making precisely the point that I’ve just brought up. As another Letterboxd commentator, Christopher Velasco observes: “Of course, they end up together.”

 

Los Angeles, July 27, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2024).