Douglas Messerli | Episodes in Gay Love: Nine Films of Roberto Pérez Toledo / [Introduction]

episodes in gay love: nine films of roberto pérez toledo  

by Douglas Messerli  

 

With the Spanish department store El Corte Inglés, the noted LGBTQ Spanish filmmaker Roberto Pérez Toledo made five short films in late 2014 and 2015 under the collective title of El Amor Mola (Love Is Cool) as part of their Valentine’s Day advertising campaign.

     These include El amor es mentira (Love Is a Lie), Como dos desconocidos (Like Two Strangers), Cupido in Love, Demostración pública de afecto (Public Display of Affection), and El Colchón (The Mattress).

     All take place in the aisles of the El Corte Inglés store. Of the five shorts, only one of them, Cupido in Love, is gay. The first of the 2-4-minute films, Love Is a Lie, involves a young man and woman, strangers, he asking for advice about a new shirt, involving them in a series of sarcastic but flirtatious conversations which, when they finally kiss, she realizes is, indeed, “a lie.”

      In the second work, Like Two Strangers, a man and a woman who obviously had a relationship, but broke up meet again, realizing that they had in fact been in love despite their bad treatment of one another. She even imagines them getting together again until she spots a Valentine’s Day package in his bag, which she presumes is intended for someone he has met since their recent break up. As she turns to go, he calls her back explaining that the gift was meant for her.

      The fourth of these short movies is the beautiful 2-minute Public Display of Affection in which an elderly couple are shopping in the store’s supermarket when they observe, at the end of one of the aisles, a young couple kissing before the store’s display background set up for Valentine’s Day.

The woman, Olga, observes that they never did anything like that. When her husband asks what, she expands her regrets, “Kissing like that in public.” He replies the she must remember that he has never like public displays of affection. He hurries off to search for the asparagus, and she continues wandering the aisles before hearing her name being called out on a row of television screens. When she moves to the television displays, she discovers her husband on every one of the screens, calling out to her. When she assures him that she’s there, he suggests that at their age it’s time her told her in public that he loves her. And behind her a small crowd has gathered as she throws a kiss to the TV monitor.

      In the final short piece El Colchón (The Mattress), an argumentative young couple are in search of a new mattress, which the female insists they need since they don’t get enough sleep. He sleeps on his back and snores, she on her side which, she’s heard, means that the mattress should not be soft. He’s cynical about all the folks shopping for Valentine’s Day, and she’s frustrated by his inability to concentrate. He argues that the real problem is that she sleeps on her side, putting a great space between them, not at all like when they first me when she used to hug him all night. Finally, she realizes the kind of mattress they truly need, the small single one he had in his apartment during his student days. The two curl up on the small mattress, having found out the problem of why they’ve grown apart.

     The third of this series, Cupido in Love has evidently, according to the Dekkoo gay film streaming site, been reissued within another series of similarly short, all-gay films that he made later, gathered as a portmanteau of 9 films as The Films of Roberto Peréz Toledo, which were evidently broadcast also on Spanish television, but made over several years. These films, which I review in full in this essay, include Cupido in Love (Season 1, Episode 1) (2015 / 2021), Hola, Mamá, Hola, Papá (Hey Mom, Hey Dad) (Season 1, Episode 2) (2016), Zombie Kiss (Season 1, Episode 3) (2016);  La peli que vamos a ver (The Movie We Are Going to See) (Season 1, Episode 4) (2017); Sí a todo (Yes to Everything) (Season 1, Episode 5) (2016); Admirador secreto (Secret Admirer) (Season 1, Episode 6) (2014); La cuarta cita (The Fourth Date) (Season 1, Episode 7) (2020); Hidroalcohólico (Hydroalcoholic) (Season 1, Episode 8) (2020); Los amigos raros (Weird Friends) (Season 1, Episode 9) (2014). The last episode is a feature film Pérez Toledo made in 2014.

     Born in the Canary Islands in 1978, Pérez Toledo was diagnosed at the age of 3 with congenital spinal atrophy, and spent most of his life in a wheel chair. He began to write scripts and work with a camera at the age of 14, and subsequently enrolled in a script-writing course in the Septima Ars Film and TV School in Madrid. Over the years he made more than 30 short films, graduating to his first feature film in 2011 with Seis puntos sobre Emma which won several awards. Many of his films have been awarded prizes for both screenwriting and direction, and he became known in Europe as one of the leading LGBTQ writers and directors.

     The director died of a stroke in 2022 on the eve of the premiere of his first stage drama, Basic Manual of Sign Language to Break Hearts.

     Beyond the 9 films gathered here and the brief mentions of his El Amor Mola series, I have reviewed most of his works in these pages.

 

Los Angeles, February 20, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (February 2023)