Jordi Núñez | Píxeles (Pixels) / 2015

minutiae in the breakdown of the image

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jordi Núñez (screenwriter and director) Píxeles (Pixels) / 2015 [12 minutes]

 

The two lovers who begin this film, Edu (Javier Amann) and Adri (Miguel Ángel Amor), Adri already accusing the quite handsome Edu of being an ugly mutt, a boxer dog, when inevitably his

face will fall into old age, Edu imitating a lonely, crying dog.

    By the second section of the movie Adri is already sketching a portrait of another tenant in the building, Tristán (Ferando Hevia), who stands posing in his underwear as Edu enters the room, and although the two lovers, Edu and Adri have passionate sex later, Edu wants to determine whether or not his lover was turned on by the handsome Tristán. Yes, Adri admits, the model is really hot, but he loves Edu, and obviously he wouldn’t fuck him.

     But the distance between them has already been established, and with his friend Sara (Laura Minguell), Edu has already established he fear that he is losing his hair. Moreover, their neighbor Tristán wants to attend their party to meet the “hot girls” Sara and Linda (Andrea Sánchez).

     Indeed, Paula (Nakarey Fernández), one of Edu and Adri’s female friends is ready immediately to jump into bed with cute-boy Tristán, Adri, the artist, filming them up close with his cellphone, while Edu looks judgmentally on. When Paula spills a bit on wine of Tristán’s undershirt, Adri demands he go into their bedroom a pick out another shirt. Why, wonders Edu, might he not return to his own apartment in the same building, and why did he pick out one of his shirts which clearly looks better on his lean body?

     Adri realizes something has changed, asking “Are you going to move? Or are you staying home?” This is not a question one can just ignore, but is addressed more as a challenge, Edu already realizing that his lover may not even care which of the two options he chooses. Edu no longer feels like following the others on their round of bars.

    This is the way so many gay relationships fall apart, through moments of paranoia, of fears of aging and loss of youthful good looks, of the lack of the other mate’s full attention. So many gay men, who were never taught to comprehend their worth regarding their social and workplace gifts and talents, have come to depend on only their good looks, their youth. Edu is terrified of his seemingly disappearing hairline, while Tristán has such a full head of curly red hair.

     Well, they’ll talk it out in the morning. Edu returns to the bathroom to squeeze more of the hair-restoring agent on his already full head of hair.

     What Edu can’t know, as he slowly tears down Adri’s drawings of himself posted across his walls, is that pissed by the women’s constant questions about why Edu has not joined them, Adri walks against a red light into his death.

     Edu’s cracked cellphone screen cannot even permit the joys of the pictures of their past relationship.

    Pixels are the bits and pieces that together form the image displayed on your screen, and it is precisely such tiny fragments which have pulled apart the full image of their loving sexual relationship.

    Spanish director Jordi Núñez’s short film is not profound, but certainly reiterates the problem of letting the daily minutiae of life destroy the full picture of what is actually happening.

 

Los Angeles, December 27, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2024).