Xavier Miralles | Letargo (Lethargy) / 2015

freeing tilikum from the past

by Douglas Messerli

 

Xavier Miralles (screenwriter and director) Letargo (Lethargy) / 2015 [21 minutes]

 

Marc (Jorge Velasco), an actor devoted to his film career, has just broken up with his partner of several years, Álex (Genís Lama Montosa), who in the sad lethargy of their broken relationship is having difficult with their shared dog, Tilikum, named after the oldest whale still in captivity, whom the owners still refuse to return to the ocean.

     Tilikum is sick, vomiting, and Álex rushes him to the pet hospital where they diagnose the animal as having contracted Leishmania, a mosquito-borne disease that is incurable, but can be controlled with medicines and loving care. Except in this case the dog is totally attached to the missing lover, who can’t possibly take animals on his movie locations, and has brought the dog home almost as an accessory to what was then, as Álex argues, “our perfect life and our perfect flat.”

      Even Álex, however, perceives the dog as a genius for having brought Marc back home, if only just for a night, where he once again appears to be desperately in love with Álex, as the two have sex, comfort their sick dog, and watch one of the rare snowfalls of Madrid.

      But it is, just as before, an illusion. When Álex awakens, the TV is again on full blast, Marc having left a note that he has just received word that he is to have another audition and will be back in two weeks. Álex attempts to feed Tilikum his much-needed pill, but this time the dog refuses and bites his caring owner’s finger. Álex tries to explain what, obviously, the animal cannot comprehend, that the man to which he is so attached doesn’t truly care about him or the man to whom he’s entrusted his former pet.

     Not once in the time since Marc has left has he even called Álex. His night of love is all pretense.

     But finally Álex’s lethargy is over. He packs up his bags, and puts Tilikum into the car, stopping by a pet store to buy him treats and a great many new toys. Where he’s heading, we have no idea, but it is clearly into a new world where perhaps both Álex and the captive dog might find a new sense of peace and other possibilities in their lives, as the film moves from the dark scenes of the earlier frames into full light.

    Spanish director Xavier Miralles nicely manipulates a pet dog into the role of a surrogate child the gay men might have nurtured instead of a dependent animal, the child perhaps feeling just as displaced by one of his father’s sudden disappearance. And it is the for the sake of the animal / child that the more passive of this former couple finally realizes that he must take responsibility for building a new life. After all, even if Marc brought him home, it was he, as he explains to the pet-store owner, who named him, and it is he who is now responsible for his charge’s survival and love.

 

Los Angeles, December 24, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2024).