we don’t talk
by Douglas Messerli
Abram Cerda (screenwriter and director) Somebody
Else / 2019 [7 minutes]
Like the central figure of this short film,
directed by Abram Cerda, I have grown rather tired of watching gay couples, one
of whom is still so closeted that he dates girls, while the other impatiently
waits in the shadows for his lover to come out. Pacheco turns away from his
friend at the end, with every good reason.
In
quick flashes that reveal the situation, Cerda presents us with the gay
relationship of Abel (Ulysses Morazan) and Pacheco (Luis Lexander Mejia) who
love their sex under covers, but one of whom, Pacheco, can simply no longer
endure his lover’s attentions to the other sex.
There’s nothing deep here, and Cerda’s film repeats what dozens of films
before him have reiterated: it’s hard to maintain a queer relationship with a
man who is still in the closet, who pretends to be, as the title suggests,
“somebody else” from who he really is.
The only question remains, do we need to see, yet again, another version
of this endlessly repeated gay trope, particularly in 2019?
The two cute boys might have wonderful “chemistry for each other” as the
film tag argues, but since one wants a relationship which the other simply
isn’t ready for, we know it will go nowhere, and yet another film will end in
the screen growing dark if nothing else but from the director’s own
frustration.
Frankly, I’d rather visit their neighbors, even if they are a straight
couple who in the dark of night wear Maga hats. Gay people need new subjects
and new territory for their stories to be fully told. The first line of the
film perhaps expresses my feelings: “It’s bullshit.” We need to move on.
Los Angeles, February 12, 2024
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog
(February 2024).
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