Chucho E. Quintero | 100 metros estilo libre (100m Freestyle) / 2013

remains of a day

by Douglas Messerli

 

Chucho E. Quintero (screenwriter and director) 100 metros estilo libre (100m Freestyle) / 2013 [17 minutes]

 

Like most of the commentators about this film, I found this work rather boring and pointless, a possibly gay story that is afraid to actually commit to the sexuality of which it hints.

     Given a slightly surreal moment of supposed memory, we perceive that the swimmer Polo (Eliott Reguera Vega) must have previously been involved with Mina (Carolina Lecuona), who has since been in a relationship with Polo’s best friend, Domingo (César Zegbe Jones); so the relationship between the two men is a truly fraught one, evidently disallowing them to openly express—given the macho attitudes of their world, particularly the sports world of Polo—their true feelings.

     Yet, Mina seems to recognize the undercurrent between the two, and even poses the question of what Polo will do now that Domingo is heading off the college? She would like him to return to her, but clearly that is now a thing of the past; and it appears that Polo is so in love with his friend that all he can do in the last couple of days of Domingo’s existence in his life is to pout.

     As one of the film’s amateur critics bemoans, couldn’t there have been just a simple sign between the two, a hand left a little too long on the other’s arm, a momentary kiss, even a goodbye hug? As it is, all we have is a moment when Domingo appears to be checking out his friend as he showers after swimming practice, and a somber promise to go to the beach together during the holidays. But even their inability to express their feelings is seen through a fog in this short work. What has their relationship been? Have they ever expressed the love they feel for one another? Or had Domingo’s commitment to Polo’s former girlfriend Mina resulted in a sort of unspoken, unfulfilled threesome?

     This is most definitely the “remains of a day” sort of work, but unlike the character in the film of that name, Polo and Domingo do not even attempt to express their regrets or their sublimated feelings. The film ends in mid-air, with the two of them staring off into a space in which there is nothing there—although at least Domingo stares ahead, while Polo looks only to the side.

     Moreover, the socio-economic difference between the two suggests that there will never be a possible return to even a sublimated relationship. While Domingo heads off to college, Polo is left working as a car-washer, even if he is practicing for the Olympics as a 100m freestyle swimmer. And given the slow pace of his movements throughout this film, we doubt he will ever even get to the other side of the pool.

     Mexican director Chucho E. Quintero’s short movie might have been a poignant statement of loss, but since we have few clues about whether these two men ever had a real relationship, we can only perceive it as a cinema of lost desire, of lost hopes. Polo seems to perceive that the rest of his life will simply be empty, and in that sense he is like any hometown boy famed for his prowess at sports but with nothing to show for it when the others around him leave for new lives. I know of just such a local sports beauty who, having no one left to love, took his own life, hinted at in this film as Polo walks straight down the railroad tracks, a train hooting in the distance.

 

Los Angeles, July 29, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2025).