Marco Laborda | The Dazzling Destiny / 2013

break-up break down

by Douglas Messerli

 

Macro Laborda (screenwriter and director) The Dazzling Destiny / 2013 [13 minutes]

 

The Dazzling Destiny is yet another dialogue-less short film using many of the standard gay-film images to recreate a failed relationship.

     You know, the two boys, Nico (Marco Laborda) and Pablo (Marius Praniauskas) meet at a party, fall immediately in love, go home, have hot sex, and begin a relationship which is centered around more hot sex, throwing pillows at one another, giggling and wrestling in bed, and just hanging out in the sack with their computers. At least, Laborda doesn’t make his pretty young men run through a grassy park or leap into the waters lapping up on the beach!

     In this case, Nico also seems to have difficulty finding a job or, if nothing else, certainly has an unpleasant encounter with an older individual who appears to laugh at his qualifications, whatever he is applying for. Pablo meanwhile appears to have found a new boyfriend.

    But in the quick, Proustian-like memories of Nico, who like so many gay boys, takes a long bath (some take endless showers) to clear his head, Nico can make no sense of what truly happened.      

       Certainly it’s easier for Laborda’s role in his role screenwriter to have no coherent story to worry about, while as a director relying on all the major gay film tropes. But, frankly, if this Spanish filmmaker wants to keep our attention, he owes us something other than simply a collage of various images and an audio and cinematic speed-up of what pretend to be moments of conversation.

       Spanish writer and director Laborda obviously knows what to do with his camera, but he has yet to learn how to make an engaging film. There’s certainly “dazzling” about this project.

 

Los Angeles, September 18, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2024).