Tania Karenni | La Repetición (The Repetition) / 2024

the knock at the door

by Douglas Messerli

 

Tania Karenni (screenwriter and director) La Repetición (The Repetition) / 2024 [15 minutes]

 

Poor Daniel (Dano) (Ernesto Siller), not only is he an alcoholic just having completed his first month of quitting, but there’s a noisy party next door to which he’s been invited, but which for obvious reasons he has refused to attend. Fortunately, he has friends on the internet like Cinthia, Lolis, and Frida who give him constant support and encouragement by messaging him.

     But then I’d be suffering on the wagon too if I lived, like Dano, in such a wretched flat. And moreover, there’s that endless knock at his door that forces him to put on his earphones and turn up the music as high as he can. He knows that if he answers the door, it will begin the cycle all over again. Even the long showers which gay men are forced to endure in so many movies when they face deep threats does not seem to help him. It might as well be his first day of withdrawal.

      Yet he suffers it out for another two weeks, marking his calendar each alcohol-free day with an X. But then suddenly the urge returns and he can’t control it, and he downs can after can of beer.

       And then the cause of his drinking—unfortunately people always presume there’s a single cause for alcohol consumption and ignore the fact that for some it’s simply that, for a while at least, those who drink heavily simply enjoy the taste and feelings that liquor produces—is at the door again, yelling to open the door.

     When he does open up, we recognize the handsome intruder, Erick (Raymundo J. Cruz) which is at the heart of his problems. Erick wants sex, not just a gentle kiss or two and a good fuck, but wild, vampiric action, almost as if it was a rape. “Only with you, can I be myself,” Erick breathlessly mutters as blood flows from Dano’s shoulder.

     Whether he might actually be a vampire isn’t the issue. The problem is that after the night of lust, Erick puts his clothes back on and leaves, missing for endlessly long periods of time. Daniel never knows when and if he might return again.

    And so the cycle is repeated: tears, the drip on the kitchen tap, pouring out of the cans and bottles of whatever is left in the refrigerator, the messages of support, the days marked with an X, the attempt to refuse to answer the knock at the door. Who can resist when you know, as bad as it is, what is on the other side? Alcohol may be the only remedy for an endless appetite of the thrill of the brutal sex that Erick provides.

      

Los Angeles, August 4, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2025).