Roberto Pérez Toledo | Sí a todo (Yes to Everything) / 2016

i can’t say no

by Douglas Messerli

 

Roberto Pérez Toledo (screenwriter and director) Sí a todo (Yes to Everything) / 2016 [3 minutes]

 

Enrique Cervantes Carlos as the busy talker in this 3-minute episode, has already fallen for the guy he’s standing next to (Carlos Soroa) before he speaks his first words. In a record shop, a taller good-looking boy is busy leafing through the record selections as the slightly more stout but equally attractive boy next to him speaks about his fascination with the way he looks.

      Finally, the taller stranger looks his way and, observing “Enrique’s” smile, engages him with a smile of his own, signing—establishing from the onset that he is deaf—something apparently about the record selection, and then moving on to signal another message, the lover responding “I don’t have a clue what you are talking about, but it’s ok, I say yes to you to everything. Soon they are wandering about the store, strangers who seem to have immediately become good friends.

      Enrique’s character is sure that his friend can read his lips or, if not, he can write his message out on paper. When he finally is face to face together with his new friend, he asks if he can read his lips; it evident from the other’s response that he cannot. He attempts to explain: “I…like…you,” but the deaf boy seems not to comprehend the message. Enrique asks “Do you like boys?” to which the deaf boy appears to demonstrate his frustration for their lack of communication.

      In the following scene they are riding the escalator down, face to face, which should make it clear to nearly anyone that something is a bit strange in this friendship to say the least. When the shorter boy moves his hand slowly to touch other boy’s hand, however, there is no flinching. He seems to like it, given his self-reflective smile.

     Seemingly worn out, the two boys are sitting together in the next frame. Finally, the chatty friend asks for a cellphone so that he might get his new friend’s number. But it’s not until he himself pulls out his own cellphone that the other understands his request. He takes up the phone and texts: “I don’t know you very well or what you’re up to, but you’re lucky, I also say yes you, to everything.”

     Now standing, the formerly deaf boy, signals the other on.

     If I were in the constantly talking boy’s shoes, I might resist that “come one,” given that the other apparently has been deceiving him the whole time, not a way to begin any new relationship, even one as impulsive as the speaker has been. I’m not sure that Pérez Toledo, however, wants us to make a judgment about either of the two boys who have just made such a remarkable leap into love.

 

Los Angeles, February 19, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (February 2023).