Julián Hernández | Nubes flotantes (Wandering Clouds) / 2014

head in the clouds

by Douglas Messerli

 

Julián Hernández and Sergio Loo (screenplay), Julián Hernández (director) Nubes flotantes (Wandering Clouds) / 2014 [14 minutes]

 

This film begins with Ignacio (Ignacio Pereda) joining his diving friend Octavio (Alan Ramírez) at the pool where Octavio climbs to the very top diving board and makes a brilliant leap to the blue waters below. His swimming friend, Manuel (Mauricio Rico) soon makes a similar, but not as spectacular dive, complaining of the pain he felt meeting up with the water, but Octavio praising his progress nonetheless.

      Throughout this early sequence, a narrator’s voice, presumably that of Ignacio, speaks of fear and hate in a kind poetic mishmash that presumably means to be a discussion of bullying and homophobia in general.

       For a moment Manuel appears to leave the picture, as Ignacio now undresses and jumps into the pool, declaring himself an “aerialist,” in this case using the term not to describe a tightrope walker or trapeze artist, but an underwater swimmer who moves in tandem with another—in this case with his buddy Octavio—in deep-water strokes that are both sensualist and sexy, the two ending in an underwater full-frontal meeting up of bodies.

       Unfortunately, the by now rather irritating voice-over continues in its somewhat poetic attempt to describe the feelings of joining with another in the patterned dance at the bottom of the pool. But soon, as they rise for breath, we can hear the taunts of Manuel, now returned to poolside. As Ignacio leaves the water, Manuel increases his bullying, mocking Ignacio’s underwater balletics and his apparent relationship with Octavio. As Ignacio attempts to fight back, a sense of violence increases as Manuel begins to slap Ignacio with a wet red bandana, moving toward him and finally pushing him into the pool. When Ignacio returns seemingly willing to fight, Octavio intervenes telling his diving buddy to stop, and moving over to hug and kiss Ignacio. When Manuel even increases his mocking and taunting, Octavio pushes the now fully-clothed diver into the pool as well.

      Inexplicably, Manuel suddenly seems unable to swim, and Octavio is forced to jump in and bring him back to the surface, blowing air into his lungs until he begins breathing again, both boys working on him until he becomes conscious. When he finally does return to normal, Manuel opens his eyes to see the two boys, seemingly acknowledging their presence, but says nothing as the film comes to its conclusion.

      Has he recognized the error of his ways? Do the two boys regret they having become involved in the violence he has sought? Has Manuel’s behavior arisen from a deep-hidden jealousy of Octavio’s relationship with Ignacio? Hernández provides no conclusions and doesn’t even seem to care to explore the real issues here outside of the text’s psycho-babble sounding statements such as “Where there is no fear there is no hate,” “I walk over the fear,” etc. It appears in this work the director is perfectly happy to keep his head in the clouds. I have to agree with what Letterboxd commentator Rick Powell wrote:

 

“I'm sad to say but after the triple-play masterpieces of the aughts, Mexican auteur Julián Hernández start[ed] sending out the cinematic equivalents of gay erotic greeting cards, complete with vague, schoolboy poetry, very pretty boys, and generous splashes of pretentious angst. Some memorable bulges, ripples, and belly buttons, but not much else.

     Estimable cinematographer Alejandro Cantú is out of his element here, too, unable to create a consistent or compelling style or thinking that a shaky shot with a long lens is somehow expressive. Compared to his glorious work with Hernández on Raging Sun, Raging Sky; and with Roberto Fiesco on Tremulo and David, where his circling, gliding camera seems to conjure the mood and the mise en scene out of nothing, his work here on Nubes Flotantes looks very-Vimeo.”

 

Los Angeles, August 20, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (August 2022).