Juan Pablo Gelvez Bustamante | El despertar (The Awakening) / 2020

nobody told me i was gay

by Douglas Messerli

 

Juan Pablo Gelvez Bustamante (screenwriter and director) El despertar (The Awakening) / 2020 [28 minutes]

 

Columbian director Juan Pablo Gelvez’ 2020 short covers well-trodden ground, focusing on a young man, Cristian (Wilmar Bernmúdez) who as a 17-year-old student has basically not even thought about his sexuality. He’s “amigos,” so he describes it, with a girl, Lorena (Camíla García), who seems far more mature and is apparently a couple of years older, treating the boy, perhaps even without is full awareness, as her personal property, clearly the man she’s picked out to marry or at least to be her boyfriend through her college years.

     Cristian seems quite popular and has a substantial group of friends who help establish a sense of the status quo among his peers. That is until a 19-year-old newcomer finally appears. Dilan (Camilo Cornejo) is a far more knowing individual who, after their class is cancelled, is invited to join Cristian and the others as they spend the afternoon and most of the evening celebrating at a local arcade and drinking. Despite the constant attentions of Lorena and another girl who’s hooked-up with Dilan find a deep rapport, at the movie house the new kid even moving his hand ever-so-slightly to rub against Cristian’s hand even though his girlfriend has long ago rested her head upon his shoulder.

     In short Cristian seems to be getting two messages that he doesn’t know what to make of: everyone around him sees him as obviously heterosexual while he finds himself increasingly drawn to Dilan.

     When the next day they plan for a group bicycle outing to which only the two boys show up, the relationship develops as, back in Dilan’s room where Cristian almost submits to his first male kiss, he rushes off with the usual fears and statements about it “being wrong.”

      But clearly for Cristian, after a painful day or two later, it has become a kind of mania, as he has attempted to escape from Lorena and find a way to talk to Dilan, without success.

      That evening, as the group gathers again in the bar, Lorena makes her most desperate move yet, engaging him in a long kiss during which he imagines as a kiss with Dilan. When the boy finally shows up a moment later, Cristian bolts from the group to head to the bathroom and the usual “wash up,” which has now unfortunately become the standard trope of demonstrating the sexual anguish of young men about to come out.

       As he begins to return to the group he comes face to face with Dilan and without further hesitation plants a big kiss on his lips, a moment later backing off and breaking down in tears, confessing his love for his new friend. Dilan wonders why he hasn’t simply told him previously, obviously demonstrating that he has no comprehension of how difficult it is for some to simply admit their strange, new feelings.

       Nonetheless, it appears that Cristian’s coming out has been relatively easy. About to celebrate his 18th birthday, he invites both Lorena and Dilan to his home, after blowing out the candles announcing that he has something to tell everyone. His mother looks pleased, presuming obviously that he about to announce his engagement to Lorena. But instead he declares his love for Dilan, declaring that he is gay—a shock apparently to all, except his friend.

       His mother refuses to even hear about, immediately sending the other boy away and ordering her son to his bedroom, who retreats in embarrassment and sobs.

       Perhaps what most distinguishes this rather amateur film is that Cristian’s father suddenly appears to comfort his son, admitting that since his father was never there for him that he refuses to be such a person, not only accepting his son’s love for someone different than they have expected but for his courage about announcing it, assuring him that his mother will also soon come around.

     Certainly it is a treat to get a new LGBTQ film from Columbia, and this might be a truly wonderfully upbeat movie to show young people today fearful about coming out. But I do wish such student and amateur works might be able to find more capable English translators. Not only are the usual problems evident here, the confusion of all articles (“his” for example confused with “she”), but the syntax is often so garbled and formally expressed that one has to become one’s own translator in English, trying to bring the text into recognizable sentences while still attending to the images. But, of course, I curse myself for not being fluent in other languages.

     In this case, however, the DVD did not even provide any credits. Although I was charmed by the fact that the director evidently was so proud of his product that he also produced a movie about the filming of the movie, which introduced me in Spanish to the actors, a film I found quite by accident on YouTube.

 

Los Angeles, September 2, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (September 2022).