Axel Rezinovsky | Karaoke / 2020

love found and lost in the very same moment

by Douglas Messerli

 

Axel Rezinovsky (screenwriter and director) Karaoke / 2020 [16 minutes]

 

Martin (Fran Váquez) is moving abroad to the US for his education, and his best female friend Nadia (Emilia Herbst) has decided, since her parents are away on vacation, to open up her house to a goodbye party for Martin. Over his protestations, she invites her brother, Ignacio (Nacho) (Augustín García Moreno).

     Although he has balked when she says that she has invited Nacho, his reasons are obscure. And we soon realize that it is because he is highly attracted to him, not because he doesn’t like him. The other guests arrive for the karaoke party, some in costume, but there is no sign of Nacho. The guests gradually get drunk, begin to perform—sometimes in quite horrible renditions—their favorite songs, and dance.

 

    Finally, Nacho arrives, and when it does appear he is bathed in red as if for Martin it was a warning. Yet there is an immediate amiability between the two boys which finally expresses itself in a lovely dance and Martin finally singing a song, mostly about traveling away from love.

      Because of all the alcohol, Martin gets sick, but when he returns to the bedroom, Ignacio is laying in the bed in wait. The two boys are just about to become better acquainted with each other’s bodies, but are interrupted by a departing guest who wants to say goodbye to Martin and needs help in loading the electronic equipment into her car. Nacho offers to help.

    The other guests have left, and morning has come all too quickly. The boys have no time to do anything but exchange email addresses, even though it now clear that they have fallen totally in love.

 

      Martin calls his father to tell him he’s on his way home so he might take him to the airport. He has only a couple of more thing to pack. And slowly he begins his sad walk back to his place.

Suddenly Ignacio comes running up to him and kisses him full on the lips, consummating their

tentative relationship. But, of course, it is all too late, despite their promises to keep in touch, and Martin’s insistence that he will be back regularly for visits.

      Love often comes at the most inconvenient of times, which was perhaps why Martin resisted Nadia’s expressed invitation of her brother. It’s clear he was ready and willing to fall in love with the boy he might have been able to kiss and bed long before. But the fact that he is leaving gave everything more meaning and poignancy. We often find what we most love when we are on the verge of losing it.

     Argentinian director Axel Rezinovsky’s short if far more charming than it is profound. But it’s charm is also rare these days.

 

Los Angeles, August 13, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2024).