the
opportunity
by
Douglas Messerli
Marisol
Torres (screenplay), Martín Bautista (director) Entre amigos (Between Friends)
/ 2010
[5
minutes]
Since the turn of the century, some of the most
interesting gay films have been made by Mexican filmmakers. Beyond the early
films of figures such as René Cardona, Jr,. Alejandro Jodowsky, Arturo
Ripstein, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, Enrique Gómez Vadillo, and Alfonso Cuarón,
younger directors such as Julián Hernández, Roberto Fiesco, Julio Hernández
Cordón, and Antonio
Serrano have become staples in the LGBTQ+ film festivals, the first two being the
most significant filmmakers of the new Mexican gay film scene.
Martín
Bautista’s very short (only 5 minutes) film follows in their tradition. In this
case two young friends appear in a hospital Noé and Jorge (Shaanty González and
Víctor Rodríguez) wherein one of them has been somewhat injured, his arm in a
sling and bruises around his fate, perhaps an auto accident, while his friend
plays video games, while also verbally repeating the noise the machine that the
intravenous tube makes as it pumps the necessary fluids into his friend.
Bored and frustrated by the situation the
bedridden patient asks his friend if he might do him a favor by jacking him
off.
At first his
friend seems somewhat offended by the suggestion, gathering up his backpack and
appearing read to leave, but friendship duty calls, and he proceeds to start
the masturbation. Before too long, however, he is completely taken over by the
sexual situation and attempts to kiss his friend, an action greeted with a
rejection by calling him a puto, a gay whore. Sweat, however, has
gathered on the eager boy’s face, and it’s clear he has an erection which hints
he’s now fully ready to challenge the other’s boy’s rejection, and perhaps, probably,
the boys might be ready to engage in their first real gay sexual act. We gather
from the song that follows, “I’m Confessing That I Love You” that they do
succeed in expressing their hidden love.
Some commentators
suggest that perhaps the boys have mutually jacked off together previously, but
now that the other has become basically feminized by his passive position, the
other is finally able to proceed to engage in his long-hidden desires.
The film, accordingly, is both high erotic
and comic at the very same moment, as the two boys are finally “in a position”
to engage in their real sexual fantasies.
Los
Angeles, July 21, 2024
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema Blog (July 2024).
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