blow-up
by Douglas Messerli
Karina Grinstein (screenwriter and director) El Chicle (Bubble Gum) / 2020 [13
minutes]
I’m sorry, despite how much Argentine director
Karina Grinstein attempts to convince me that all a boy, a bit confused about
this sexuality, really needs is a good stick of pink bubble gum, I’m truly not
convinced.
Mariano
Rojo (as David) is certainly cute, and I might go to bed with him any night, if
he’d only take that bubble gum—which in most cases in this black-and-white
universe appears as a surprising pink bubble—out of his mouth.
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I’m glad he
runs into the businessman Javier (Hernán Statuto) and finds his true love in a
red bubble, and most importantly, gets rid of the totally black-and-white,
heterosexual Zoe (Zoe Peressini). This film attempts a kind of mythological romance
in the manner of Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 movie The Red Balloon, but
really, pink bubblegum is not my thing. As Zoe quite easily reveals, it sticks
to you and leaves the sad memory behind on your heel or even, in another
occasion with a possible pick-up, or perhaps even your butt.
This cute
pick-up also seems so sexually confused to the degree that only a “chicle”
moment appears to tempt him into the bed of another man. Perhaps David and
Javier might really stick it out together, but really, chewing gum is not the
cohesive force to last through decades of difficulty, as I can assure him and
the director Karina Grinstein.
The
music by Leo Blumberg is charming, but really not enough to keep me attending to
the pink bubbles blown out of a passing vehicle of intervention.
If only
this short film had simply dropped David into bed with Javier, why then we
might have gotten somewhere! As it is, it’s only a silly triviality of the
streets.
Los Angeles, February 9, 2025
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (February
2025).
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