Alejandro Durán | Sígueme (Follow Me) / 2011

the solution

by Douglas Messerli

 

Alejandro Durán (screenwriter and director) Sígueme (Follow Me) / 2011 [13 minutes]

 

A handsome young man, Ruben (Jacinto Bobo) goes to the beach to read his Hermann Hesse.

     There he observes a young runner, Paco (Daniel Enríquez) pass him. But soon the runner returns and beckons him to follow him down a small path to a rock cropping where the two men have passionate sex, Paco fucking Ruben. Paco gives Ruben his number and suggests that he runs there every morning. What Ruben doesn’t know is that in the process of having sex, his wedding ring has fallen to the ground.

     Ruben returns him to his wife, who is doing yoga on the apartment rooftop. Energized by the experience, he kisses her, poised to make love, Julia (May Melero) surprised by the sudden attention. But then she quickly notices the ring is missing. She turns away angrily, Ruben running after her, to no avail.

    The next morning, Ruben returns to the spot of the beach where he first encountered Paco. Meanwhile, Julia is sitting at a beach café nearby, trying to comprehend the situation. When Paco comes running by this time, Ruben bends behind the rocks to hide, there finding the missing ring. His cellphone rings. It is Julia telling him of his location and he rushes over to the café in an attempt to tell her how much he truly loves her and wants to remain with her.

      In Spanish director Alejandro Durán’s sensuous fable, time passes, and we now see Ruben holding a baby, named Paco, visiting with Julia the same spot on the beach where he met Paco. We are startled that, knowing of his sexual proclivities that he has made the choice to remain married and have a child, for we know in all the history of gay life how problematic that can be, the later desires that break through the determined commitment to normative heterosexuality, the heartbreak with which such relationships often end. And in some senses, we feel cheated by Durán’s narrative.

      But almost immediately Paco himself reappears, greeted with a kiss by Julia, as he moves forward to Ruben, Ruben telling the child to say hello to Daddy. The two men kiss, and Julia joins them. The three, obviously now a kind of thruple, prepare for a beachside picnic.

      This is a remarkably forward-looking, well-made short film, particularly prescient since it was released 2011 (at a time in which one commentator of the day described it as “eccentric”), 13-years ago from a time in which we are finally realizing that such relationships are possible and often necessary for fulfillment and happiness, is a gentle gem, with a hot sex scene to boot. Who could ask for anything more?

 

Los Angeles, August 3, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2024).