Camila Jiménez Villa | Tijereto (Flycatcher) / 2011

a romantic weekend

by Douglas Messerli

 

Camila Jiménez Villa (screenwriter and director) Tijereto (Flycatcher) / 2011 [21 minutes]

 

The beautifully visualized work by Columbian director Camila Jiménez Villa is, on the surface, a sort of quiet puzzle of a movie.

     Natalia (Jimena Duran) and Daniel (Nicolás Cancino) have sub-rented a room in a house where a writer Marlon (Nelson Camayo) has been writing for the six months. Indeed, that seems to be nearly all the couple, who plan to spend only a romantic weekend there, know about him. Daniel finds it strange, to be alone on an island all that time without any companionship, and is seemingly wary about him during most of their stay.

     We watch the couple as the calmly boat into the island with Marlon greeting them and briefly showing them around the place, pointing out their bedroom, the bathroom where he warns them that water is scarce, before he asks them basically to hold down any noise, presumably since he will be working on his book, of which we learn nothing.

     Nearly the entire movie, in fact, seems to be fairly placid. Natalia and Daniel go to the beach, where Natalia goes in for a swim, tossing off her swimming top and tossing it back to him, before him she does the same the bottom of her bikini—very much to the consternation of Daniel. Nothing untoward happens.

     At dinner, Daniel seems to be cooking, but Marlon quickly comes to assist him, seemingly taking over the preparation of the meal, grabbing just a puff of Daniel’s cigarette as the couple head off to bed, leaving him the rest of the smoke. We see the couple snuggled up later in their bed.

     The next morning Natalia rises early, camera in hand, stopping by Marlon’s room, the door just slightly ajar, to take a picture of him as he lays asleep, his naked ass free of the cover.

 

     She then moves outdoors and continues to take photographs. A little later, as she swims once more out toward a large house on a neighboring land mass, she encounters Marlon, who explains he’s been fishing but has been unable to catch anything.   

     She jokes that he has “vampire” teeth, he playing along by asking if she hadn’t noticed that there are no mirrors on the island.

    Later they play a game of Jenga, Marlon cleverly removing one of the lower blocks and placing it on top, with Natalia dexterously following. Daniel topples the tower.

      Marlon suggests another round, but Daniel argues that after swimming he’s tired and retires, while Natalia stays up, talking to their host, trying to get him to tell the story of what he’s writing without success.

      Suddenly, he leans toward and kisses her. The tension between the two is obvious, and the kiss is returned.

      In the morning while rubbing her back, Daniel notices a scratch on her shoulder which he asks about. For a long while, she says nothing, but sits up, gradually muttering something about “last night,” and finally after a great deal of coaxing and worry on Daniel’s part, admitting that she and Marlon “hooked up.” Daniel is still unclear what that means; did she kiss him or fuck him? She doesn’t reply, but only asks him to forgive her.

      Furious, Daniel stands, going on the search for Marlon who he finds in the ocean, quite near the shore. He shoves and pushes him, attempting to slug him, Marlon fighting back. Quickly, however, the warfare turns into a kiss, Marlon grabbing Daniel’s cock through his underpants. There is a pause and a brief renewal of the kisses before Daniel pushes away, the two men in the next frame seen sitting a short distance from each other on the beach.

     In the next frame, the couple are quietly packing, a strange silence having overcome them. It appears they are both preparing to leave, yet they appear at odds, Natalia asking, “She we go?” and when she receives no answer, following up with, “Well, I’m going to start heading out then.” It seems almost as if she were leaving without her former lover.

    But Daniel also is seen leaving soon after, picking up a fallen Jenga block and putting it on the table, before joining Natalia at the waiting boat.

     The trip away from the island is made in complete silence, with Daniel finally taking out a cigarette and trying, without success to light it. Natalia attempts to help cover his cupped hand to prevent the wind from putting out the fire, but only when Daniel turns away, back toward island, does the fag catch afire.

     Clearly, both Natalia and Daniel have found out something about themselves, Natalia perhaps that she is not as happy with Daniel as she imagined she was, and Daniel that perhaps he is far more interested in men than he ever before imagined, and is most intrigued by Marlon in particular.

     Has Marlon simply had sex with Natalia in order to wake up Daniel and, perhaps, catch him? Or is the island itself a sort of trap for those of any sex, with Marlon being a kind of loner vampire ready to prey on any visitor who sets foot on Tijereto—the name also of a species related to kingbirds, who inhabit South America and dine mostly on insects and fruit?

     Jiménez Villa’s work does not explain motives, but simply shows a series of human acts of sexual consequence. Make of it what you will. What we do know is that Natalia and Daniel will never quite be the same placid heterosexual couple again. If nothing else, the couple has had a “romantic weekend,” just not of the kind they had expected.

 

Los Angeles, November 12, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2025).