Cristian Franco-Tuñón | Luces del Centro (Center Lights) / 2013

imagining a world beyond his reach

by Douglas Messerli

 

Cristian Franco-Tuñón (screenwriter and director) Luces del Centro (Center Lights) / 2013 [8 minutes]

 

The Argentine film without dialogue from 2013 features a man, Mateo (Diego Nogara) obviously dissatisfied with his relationship and on the prowl for almost anyone, as he stands on his balcony in his undershorts to observe the lights and the sexual world below. According to descriptions of the plot he is actually interested in the man next door, with whom he has a fleeting sexual encounter, presented in quick cuts that don’t even bother to resemble queer sex.

    By the time this very short film comes to an end, he is back into the arms of his lover. What this film conveys is perhaps only a temporary fixation upon another world outside of the closed possibilities of a monogamous relationship, but the narrative is so very disjunctive that we are not quite sure. Is this the beginning of something else or the end? Does he return to his lover (Emmanuel Degracia) or is this merely the beginning of an endless longing for something other?

    Within the quick cuts there must be some artistry here, but alas, it’s difficult to know. Perhaps if they’d simply spoken some few words, explained what the problem between the two men might have been we would have, at least, sympathized with the obvious dissatisfaction of the couple, and the film might have provided us with some logic. This leaves us only with a sense of a man on the prowl.

     I know the feeling, but really, what is the point of the film? A return to rationality, to a temporary feeling of stasis, a supposedly sane submission to monogamy. I’m sorry, I missed the message.

 

Los Angeles, March 31, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (March 2025).