Mauro Mueller | Un mundo para Raúl (A World for Raúl) / 2012

no choice in the matter

by Douglas Messerli

 

Mauro Mueller (screenwriter and director) Un mundo para Raúl (A World for Raúl) / 2012 [15 minutes]

 

Given the proliferation of short LGBTQ movies coming out of college and university film schools beginning in the late 1990s but greatly expanding in the Millennium, I have grown increasing astounded by and excited with the growing sophistication and simple beauty of gay filmmaking. While there is no question that far too many of the hundreds of films made each year are still amateur products filled with simple and clichéd narratives, a great number of them reveal significant talent that unfortunately is not always translated into a full cinema career. Many of these talented individuals, even if they stay within the cinema industry, do not remain as directors. Yet, as I have noted throughout these pages, annually some of the most significant films have been these student-produced and university supported short movies.

      Swiss-born and raised Mauro Mueller, of Mexican heritage, was a student at Columbia University when he made Un mundo para Raúl (A World for Raúl), one of six short films he made as a student. Mueller has gone on to become a director and co-director several other films since, most notably Copenhagen (2014). But what is most amazing is how this MFA student at the time was able to take a simple narrative and subtly infuse it with political, social, and sexual ramifications far broader than the surface story.     

     Raúl (Alexandré Barceló) is the thirteen-year-old son of a Mexican tenant farmer, Juan (Gerard Taracena) who works as an eggplant grower on the large country estate of Mr. Tamero (Roberto Meza). The film begins with Raúl doing what he must do during much of his spare time, kicking a soccer ball around an intrusive goat outside their concrete-block home.

     He’s immediately called inside by his mother (Adriana Paz) who insists he dress in his best shirt, pants, and shoes. He and his father get in the truck and he whisked away for several hours to be playmate of the landowner’s son Hernán (Adrian Alonso), who is visiting the country estate where he feels isolated and lonely, a place which he later describes as a “hole,” preferring so the movie suggests to spend his life in the city. In fact, the boys have not seen each other for three years, both having grown up in that time, something which the males both observe, but which the boys also observe about one another.

      They talk and gossip for a short while, Hernán bragging that has two box-seat tickets to the major local soccer match, hoping that Raúl got his tickets early since they’re now sold out—never imagining that Raúl and his family would never have the money to spend on such an event. When Raúl asks if he’s taking along a girlfriend, Hernán proudly reveals that he’s going his father, hinting that he’s not yet interested in girls, although they vaguely talk about them, mentioning how they both scared a girl named Lupe. When Hernán asks what became of her, offhandedly showing his disdain for her kind, “Did she get pregnant?” Raúl explains that she died—of malnourishment, something surely Hernán also cannot imagine.

      At first, they kick around the soccer ball, but when it appears that Raúl is obviously superior, Hernán insists they play another “game,” sitting him down in the patio to drink beers, swallowing the complete bottles down in one long series of swallows, the winner is able to leave not a single drop of the liquid in the bottle. Hernán, clearly already an experienced drinker, wins the first round. But Raúl, quick to catch on, dares him to another bottle, producing the desired results, although it is apparent from his reaction that Raúl has never before been allowed alcohol.

      After they take a piss together, Hernán giggling when he looks over at his friend, apparently struck the size (whether smaller or larger than his own we cannot yet tell) of his friend.

       Hernán next insists that they go swimming in the pool, Raúl pausing as Hernán quickly undresses. Unlike his friend Raúl does not have swimming trunks, and even more importantly, as Hernán remembers from their previous outing, he does not know how to swim, something which astounds the wealthy boy, again unable to perceive that Raúl’s family do not access to a swimming pool or someone to teach them how to swim.

      Nonetheless, he offers to teach his playmate, but instead of gently helping him pretends to drown him, terrifying the coughing and chocking Raúl as he eventually makes his way back to the edge of the pool. Hernán comes up behind him close, finally allowing him to turn around as he begins to touch his chest and, without hesitation moving his hand lower.

      The two begin to engage in what is apparently mutual masturbation, Hernán first appearing to blackmail him by saying “My Dad is the reason you eat,” then commenting on the physical changes of his friend once again, “You’ve grown up,” and finally, as a look of worried contentment transforms Raúl’s face, Hernán reassuring himself, “You like it, right?” In an even further sexual gesture, he demands his friend take off his undies, taking them in his hands and blithely tossing them off into the deeper water. And indeed, although Raúl doesn’t seem to have much choice in the manner and his slightly terrorized by that act, he does seem to be taking pleasure in the sexual act, clearly to his consternation. All of this is presented in a series of discrete visual facial gestures that represent the brilliance of the young actors and the director.

      Inside, the boys are ready to depart, as we overhear the end of the landowner’s comment to his worker that he should stick to eggplants and not think about adding blue agave. When Hernán reminds him of their tickets to the football game, his father says he has forgotten about it and suggests he go with María, the maid. We can see just how terribly disappointed the boy is that his father will not be joining him, but at the same time, neither he nor his father can even imagine that he might invite Raúl.

       As they are about to leave, Raúl’s father attempts to bring up another issue, but the landowner interrupts him suggesting he come back in two weeks and bring Raúl once again, obviously as a distraction for his bored and angry son. But as they are about to exit, Raúl asks what his father is too fearful now to bring up, wondering if they might borrow the Tamero’s John Deere to help with the seeding and fertilizing. Tamero looks at the boy and then at his son as if his comments might almost be in payment for his friendship with Hernán, but even then his response is indirect and dismissive: “Look Raulito. That crap really isn’t worth much. But anyway, let me check.”

      On their way home, Raúl’s father praises his son’s audacity, suggesting that when they watch the game that evening, “we’ll crack your first beer.” The reward is so ironic that as we watch the boy silently sitting by his father’s side suffering for the fears that either he may be gay or, just as possibly, in terror of being used by the other boy as his gay playmate, we don’t know whether to break into laugher or tears.

      Notice that the title of this small gem is not “the world of Raúl,” but “a world for Raúl,” something handed to him either by nature or the socio-economic conditions into which he was born.

 

Los Angeles, January 14, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (January 2023).